Contact
Biography
I achieved first class honours for a Master of Physics (MPhys) degree in Physics at Durham University in 2010. I completed my PhD, Seeing the Light: Foreground Removal in the Dark and Dim Ages, at University College London. I won the University College London Chris Skinner Department of Physics and Astronomy Thesis Prize. During this time I became concerned about PhD culture and how it impacts women.
My research interests remain in seeking out the first stars through have widened from looking only at foreground removal, instead looking at the idea of using optical surveys and stellar archaeology.
I have carried on my gender equality work with passion, being a proud member of The 1752 Group, a group campaigning and providing solutions for power-based sexual misconduct. My personal bug bear has been the enforced use of NDAs on vistims and I have spoken at great length to the media and to parliament about this issue.
I also enjoy doing outreach of a much happier kind, spreading my love of astronomy and how anyone can access it and wonder at the questions it provokes. I give talks at festivals, local pubs, on radio and my first book, First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time, published by Bloomsbury, is out now.
Awards:
2017 L'Oréal Women in Science Fellowship, Highly Commended, £1000
2014 The Shell and Institute of Physics Award for the Very Early Career Woman Physicist of the Year: winner
2013 UCL Chris Skinner Department of Physics and Astronomy Thesis Prize: winner
2013 Royal Astronomical Society Michael Penston Thesis Prize: runner up
2010 Durham University J.B.Chalmers Prize: winner for having amongst the three highest Physics degree marks in the year.
Expertise Summary
I am a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow based at University of Nottingham and also a member of the LOFAR-EoR core team. I supervise two PhD students. My website can be found here.
Research Interests:
-- Cosmic Dawn and the First Stars
-- Epoch of reionization
-- 21-cm cosmology
-- Foreground removal
-- Semi-numeric simulations
-- Construction of data analysis pipelines for LOFAR / SKA
Selected Publications
CHEN, ZHAOTING, CHAPMAN, EMMA, WOLZ, LAURA and MAZUMDER, AISHRILA, 2023. Detecting the H i power spectrum in the post-reionization Universe with SKA-Low: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 524(3), 3724-3740 MEVIUS, M., MERTENS, F., KOOPMANS, L. V. E., OFFRINGA, A. R., YATAWATTA, S., BRENTJENS, M. A., CHAPMAN, E., CIARDI, B., GAN, H., GEHLOT, B. K., GHARA, R., GHOSH, A., GIRI, S. K., ILIEV, I. T., MELLEMA, G., PANDEY, V. N. and ZAROUBI, S., 2022. A numerical study of 21-cm signal suppression and noise increase in direction-dependent calibration of LOFAR data: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 509(3), 3693-3702 HOTHI, IAN, CHAPMAN, EMMA, PRITCHARD, JONATHAN R., MERTENS, F. G., KOOPMANS, L. V. E., CIARDI, B., GEHLOT, B. K., GHARA, R., GHOSH, A., GIRI, S. K., ILIEV, I. T., JELIĆ, V. and ZAROUBI, S., 2021. Comparing foreground removal techniques for recovery of the LOFAR-EoR 21 cm power spectrum: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 500(2), 2264-2277