Elaine Margaret Sadler is an Australian astrophysicist. She is the

Australia Telescope National Facility The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)'s radio astronomy observatories are collectively known as the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF), with the facility supporting Australia's research in radio astron ...

Chief Scientist and a Professor of Astrophysics in the School of Physics at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

. She was elected as a fellow of the

Australian Academy of Science The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The academy is modelled after the Royal Soci ...

(AAS) in 2010 and commenced a 4-year term as Foreign Secretary of the AAS in 2018. She was previously director of the CAASTRO centre (2014-2018). Sadler is a member of the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

and served as the President Division VIII Galaxies & the Universe from 2009 to 2012. She has over 400 publications as of May 2020.

Biography

Sadler's interest in astronomy developed when she was eight years old and received a book with photographs of telescopes and the

Universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. Acc ...

, which "got erthinking about big questions." At age 11, she joined the local amateur astronomical society in

Guildford, England Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Guildford (borough), Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants i ...

, where she was the youngest member. Sadler studied physics at the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

, where she received her undergraduate degree. She received her PhD in astronomy from

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

in 1983. Following graduation, she worked at the European Southern Observatory and Kitt Peak National Observatory before moving to the Australian Astronomical Observatory. In 1993, she began working at the University of Sydney. Receiving three ARC Fellowships, she "had time to carry out research projects with a broad scope." With a team of colleagues, Sadler developed a radio atlas of the entire southern sky, using the University of Sydney's

Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope The Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST) is a radio telescope operating at 843 MHz. It is operated by the School of Physics of the University of Sydney. The telescope is located in Hoskinstown, near the Molonglo River and Canberra ...

, which is now used by astronomers internationally. In her role directing CAASTRO, she oversaw "a network of over 100 scientists and more than 40 research students across CAASTRO's seven university nodes (at the University of Sydney, Australia National University, Curtin University, University of Melbourne, University of Queensland, Swinburne University of Technology and University of Western Australia) and eleven Australian and overseas partner institutions." In July 2015, Sadler's research team found a 5-billion-year-old galaxy using the CSIRO's

Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a radio telescope array located at Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in the Mid West region of Western Australia. The facility began as a technology demonstrator for the int ...

. Sadler's primary research areas include

galaxy evolution The study of galaxy formation and evolution is concerned with the processes that formed a heterogeneous universe from a homogeneous beginning, the formation of the first galaxies, the way galaxies change over time, and the processes that have gen ...

and

active galaxies An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the center of a galaxy that has a much-higher-than-normal luminosity over at least some portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with characteristics indicating that the luminosity is not pr ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sadler, Elaine Living people Australian astrophysicists Academic staff of the University of Sydney University of Queensland alumni Australian National University alumni Women astronomers Women astrophysicists 21st-century Australian astronomers Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science Officers of the Order of Australia Year of birth missing (living people)