Rate My Professor Manda Banerji-Wright

Professor Manda Banerji-Wright is Professor of Astrophysics in the Astronomy Group within the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southampton, where she also serves as Associate Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences. She earned an undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Astrophysics from University College London, completed between 2006 and 2009 under Prof. Ofer Lahav in cosmology, during which she won the Jon Darius Award. Following her doctorate, she held a postdoctoral position at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, working on the discovery of high-redshift quasars. She subsequently secured prestigious fellowships there, including the STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship and the Royal Society University Research Fellowship awarded in 2017 for the project 'Observing the Effects of Quasar Feedback on Massive Galaxy Formation'. Prior to her current role, she advanced from Associate Professor in Astronomy to full Professor at Southampton. She is a member of the Southampton Theory Astrophysics and Gravity Research Centre and accepts applications from PhD students.

Professor Banerji-Wright's research specializations encompass galaxy formation and evolution, active galaxies and supermassive black holes, and wide-field imaging and spectroscopic surveys. She utilizes multi-wavelength observational data from large ground-based telescopes to investigate the co-evolution of galaxies and their central supermassive black holes, particularly through studies of quasars, AGN outflows, and obscured systems at high redshifts. Notable publications include 'A disc wind model for blueshifts in quasar broad emission lines' (2023, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society), 'No redshift evolution in the rest-frame UV emission line properties of quasars from z=1.5 to z=4.0' (2023), 'Multiwavelength observations of the extraordinary accretion event AT2021lwx' (2023), 'A big red dot: scattered light, host galaxy signatures and multi-phase gas flows in a luminous, heavily reddened quasar at cosmic noon' (2024), 'AGNfitter-rx: modelling the radio-to-X-ray spectral energy distributions of AGNs' (2024), and 'Evidence for universal gas depletion in a sample of 41 luminous Type 1 quasars at z ∼ 2' (2025). Her contributions extend to projects involving Rubin Observatory and Euclid data products, enhancing understanding of quasar-galaxy connections and black hole feedback processes.