Find an expert

I am a Senior Lecturer in Cosmology in the School of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Queensland, and recipient of the 2026 Pawsey Medal from the Australian Academy of Science. My research focuses on mapping the positions and motions of millions of galaxies to understand how our Universe has evolved since the Big Bang — and to shed light on the mysterious dark matter and dark energy that make up 95% of everything in it.

I work on some of the largest galaxy surveys ever undertaken including

• DESI (the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument) — a project mapping tens of millions of galaxies across the Universe.
• 4HS (the 4MOST Hemisphere Survey) — a new southern-sky survey that began observations in 2026, in which I lead the cosmology team

To analyse the enormous datasets these surveys produce, my team develops cutting-edge computing and statistical tools — techniques for making sense of extraordinarily large and complex data that are increasingly finding uses beyond astronomy.

Academic Background

• Undergraduate: MPhys 1st Class Honours - University of Sussex, 2008-2012
• Postgraduate: PhD - University of Portmouth, 2012-2016
• Research Associate - University of Western Australia, 2015-2019
• Research Fellow in Cosmology - University of Queensland, 2019-

I am a Cosmologist studying the properties of the Universe on the largest scales.

By mapping the positions of millions of galaxies, I investigate the unknown physics of the dark energy which drives the evolution of the Universe today, and the physics just after the Big Bang, when the ripples which grew under gravity to become galaxies were created.

I am actively participating in the key experiments designed to understand dark energy and gravity. I am co-chair of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) lensing working group, and an active member of the Vera Rubin Observatory (LSST) and the Dark Energy Survey (DES). In the past, I had led science with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, one of the major quests of contemporary physics that has spurred advancement in answering a range of fundamental questions about the origins of the universe.

I am passionate about communicating top-level research ideas to audiences outside our immediate academic sub-community. I have experience on a variety of media, including radio, public talks and lectures to local schools, science festivals and amateur astronomy groups, outreach activities at Stargazing Live events, as well as through written pieces.

I am an advocate for making STEM field accessible to everyone. During my career, I took part into different initiatives aiming to reduce structural barriers faced by different minorities in academia and inspire the next generation of STEM careers. I am part of the Women in Science Association with the aim to foster a community for young women in STEM, within and beyond the academic community. I worked and volunteered at N.G.O. centres, in Italy and Australia supporting young students to overcome educational inequality caused by poverty and other conditions.

Since 2021 I am on the Early Career Chapter committee for the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) to promote and assist the career development of early and mid-career researchers in the Australian astronomy community. I am also part of the Wellbeing ambassador program at University of Queensland, to promote and assist the career development of early and mid-career researchers in the Australian astronomy community.

Carolyn is a theoretical physicist studying quantum information and quantum foundations. She grew up in central Queensland and holds bachelor’s degrees in physics (UQ) and applied linguistics (Griffith University). She completed her PhD in physics at the University of Queensland.

Her research is focused on physics at the interface between quantum mechanics, general relativity and thermodynamics, quantum machine learning, and the applications of both to quantum information theory and quantum computing. She is also broadly interested in artificial intelligence, and cross-disciplinary research combining physics and linguistics.

Carolyn was a Deborah Jin Research Fellow with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQUS) from 2022 to 2025.