Rate My Professor Gemma Anderson

Dr Gemma Anderson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy (CIRA) and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research node at Curtin University, within the Faculty of Science and Engineering. As a radio transient astronomer, she specializes in observing cosmic explosions and outbursts using radio telescope arrays including the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) and Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). Her research examines the radio characteristics of a wide range of transients, such as gamma-ray bursts (short and long), supernovae, fast radio bursts, binary neutron star and neutron star-black hole mergers, and tidal disruption events. Anderson has driven the implementation of rapid-response automated observing capabilities on the MWA and ATCA, leading the MWA triggering program designed to capture prompt, coherent radio signals from gravitational wave detections by LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA. She serves as an Associate Investigator for OzGrav, contributing expertise on early-time radio properties of compact object mergers, including predicted emissions like FRB-like signals and energy injection from neutron star remnants.

Anderson received the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award in 2017 for her project 'Probing extreme astrophysics via rapid response to cosmic explosions.' She is a Chief Investigator on ARC Discovery Project DP200102471, enabling real-time multimessenger astronomy with rapid radio follow-up of gravitational wave triggers. Notable publications include a 2016 Science paper on radio emission from a tidal disruption event where a supermassive black hole consumed a star; 'Heavy-element production in a compact object merger observed by JWST and follow-up observations' (Nature, 2023); 'Discovery of a radio transient in M81' (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2019); 'The Arcminute Microkelvin Imager Catalogue of Gamma-ray Burst afterglows' (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2018); and contributions to studies of the early radio afterglow of short GRB 230217A (The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2024) and the luminous long-lived radio transient ASKAP J005512.2-255834 (The Astrophysical Journal, 2025). Her work has advanced understanding of relativistic jets, plasma plumes from black holes, and unprecedented transients like the repeating object ASKAP J1832-0456. Anderson chairs the ICRAR-Curtin Pleiades Committee, supporting equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives that earned CIRA recognition. She delivers public lectures, including at Pint of Science and science comedy events.