Prof Simon Vaughan

I am a professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy. I teach throughout the physics degrees and am a member of the Astrophysics Research Division.

My research includes the study active galactic nuclei (AGN) gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and black hole X-ray binaries in our Galaxy. My particular research interests include probes of strong gravity time series astronomy Bayesian data analysis in astronomy and dust-scattering from GRBs (I discovered the first known example of the latter phenomenon in 2004). I've published more than 100 refereed papers and received well over 6000 citations to date. I have extensive experience with data from ESA's Cornerstone X-ray mission XMM-Newton (including being PI or Co-I on several ""Large Programmes"") NASA's Great Observatory Chandra NASA's RXTE and the joint US-UK-Italy mission Swift as well as many previous high-energy astronomy missions. I've been awarded guest observer time as PI on all these missions and was a member of a Working Group and Science Team for future ESA mission Athena.

Full publication list available through NASA's ADS.

X-ray studies of accreting black holes including AGN and X-ray binaries.

Analysis and modelling of variability from accreting black holes including developing and deploying methods for time series analysis. 

• PA1710 - Mathematical Physics 1.1 
• PA1900 - Experimental Physics 1 
• PA2720 - Statistical Physics
• PA2900 - Experimental Physics 2
• PA4602 - Scientific Data Analysis 
• Year 3 and 4 research and literature projects
• academic and personal tutorials

• Fellow of the Institute of Physics (IOP)
• Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS)
• Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS)
• Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)
• Member of International Astronomy Union (IAU)
• Member of European Astronomical Society (EUA)
• Member of COSPAR 

• Distinguished Teaching Fellowship (University of Leicester) 2015
• Finalist Discovering Excellence Awards (2019)
• SU Superstar Award (multiple nominations in 2018 2019 2020)
• Citizen's Award (Ignite Innovator 2021 - with Prof Mervyn Roy)