Maggie Lieu Staff Biography

Academically, I would say playing a key role in the large international collaboration XXL that has produced over 38 papers from the largest contiguous survey ever performed on the XMM X-ray space telescope is a major highlight of my career. The research contributed significantly to my PhD thesis, which I am incredibly proud of.

Additionally, I would say the opportunities I have been given in doing public engagement. In 2018 I was a keynote speaker at the sold-out Space Rocks event at the O2 arena where I shared a stage with Queen guitarist Brian May and astronaut Tim Peake. 

Currently my research is largely focused on neural emulators as surrogate models. These machine learning tools allow us to condense complex theoretical models and large, computationally expensive simulations into an implementation that is smaller, more simplistic, and more efficient to execute. I have been applying these tools across the scales of the universe, from the large scales of clusters of galaxies to learn about the dark matter and dark energy in our universe, to the small scales of black holes to model their disks and ejected winds. 

The entire process of being a director on this course has been rewarding. I have learned a lot from being involved in structuring the course content, which is a relatively new field that is constantly evolving.

I think the most rewarding thing is seeing students taking in the content that we teach in the lectures and workshops, and then applying it successfully to the final project. 

In my spare time I run a YouTube channel where I make general public friendly videos about space and astronomy. I like to get involved in public engagement activities, but besides astronomy, I like to spend time on my fitness and health.