Karl Glazebrook (born 1965) is a British

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

, known for his work on

galaxy formation 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 ge ...

, for playing a key role in developing the "nod and shuffle" technique for doing

redshift survey In astronomy, a redshift survey is a survey of a section of the sky to measure the redshift of astronomical objects: usually galaxies, but sometimes other objects such as galaxy clusters or quasars. Using Hubble's law, the redshift can be used ...

s with large telescopes, and for originating the

Perl Data Language Perl Data Language (abbreviated PDL) is a set of free software array programming extensions to the Perl programming language. PDL extends the data structures built into Perl, to include large multidimensional arrays, and adds functionality to m ...

(PDL). Glazebrook was born in 1965 in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

, and educated at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

(PhD 1992). He held post-doctoral appointments at the

University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...

and

before moving to the

Anglo-Australian Observatory The Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO), formerly the Anglo-Australian Observatory, was an optical and near-infrared astronomy observatory with its headquarters in North Ryde in suburban Sydney, Australia. Originally funded jointly by the U ...

, where he played a central role in supporting the 2dF galaxy survey as its instrument scientist. He moved to

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

in 2000 where he was Professor of Astronomy until 2006, at which time he became Professor of Astronomy at

Swinburne University of Technology Swinburne University of Technology (often simply called Swinburne) is a public research university based in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded in 1908 as the Eastern Suburbs Technical College by George Swinburne to serve those without access ...

in Melbourne, Australia. His work has been cited over 40,000 times in the literature of astronomy. Glazebrook also developed the open-source

, a perl-based alternative to the commercial

IDL IDL may refer to: Computing * Interface description language, any computer language used to describe a software component's interface ** IDL specification language, the original IDL created by Lamb, Wulf and Nestor at Queen's University, Canada ...

. Glazebrook was one of the leaders of the '' Gemini Deep Deep Survey'' (GDDS) which measured the evolution of galaxies using

Gemini Observatory The Gemini Observatory is an astronomical observatory consisting of two 8.1-metre (26.6 ft) telescopes, Gemini North and Gemini South, which are located at two separate sites in Hawaii and Chile, respectively. The twin Gemini telescopes prov ...

and the

Hubble The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...

and

Spitzer Space Telescope The Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), was an infrared space telescope launched in 2003. Operations ended on 30 January 2020. Spitzer was the third space telescope dedicated to infrared astronomy, f ...

s. The project, along with a number of other studies, determined in 2004 that massive galaxies formed surprisingly early in the distant Universe, explaining why a lot of them appear so remarkably old. As a whimsical side-project Glazebrook also determined that the bulk-averaged color of the Universe is Cosmic latte. Both pieces of work received wide publicity in the international press. The bulk-averaged color earned some additional international publicity because a software bug had initially suggested a pale turquoise instead of the bland beige. He is also well known in the astronomical community for his pioneering work in developing the baryon oscillation technique to use the distribution of galaxies as a probe of

dark energy In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is an unknown form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales. The first observational evidence for its existence came from measurements of supernovas, which showed that the univer ...

. After his move to Australia he played a leading role in the

WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey is a large-scale astronomical redshift survey that was carried out on the 3.9 metre Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) at the Siding Spring Observatory, New South Wales between August 2006 and January 2011. The name s ...

between 2006 and 2011.

Honours and awards

* 2018

Australian Laureate Fellowship The Australian Laureate Fellowship is an Australian professorial research fellowship awarded by the Australian Research Council. Up to 17 fellows are chosen each year for five-year awards. Kathleen Fitzpatrick and Georgina Sweet fellowships In 201 ...

* 2008, awarded the Maria & Eric Muhlmann Award for the development of innovative research instruments and techniques from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.2008 ASP Award Recipients Press Release
/ref> * Outer

main-belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

asteroid 10099 Glazebrook, discovered by

Spacewatch The Spacewatch Project is an astronomical survey that specializes in the study of minor planets, including various types of asteroids and comets at University of Arizona telescopes on Kitt Peak near Tucson, Arizona, in the United States. The Sp ...

at Kitt Peak in 1991, was named in his honor. Naming citation was published on 11 November 2000 ().

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Glazebrook, Karl 1965 births Living people People educated at Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Academics of Durham University Academic staff of Swinburne University of Technology 21st-century Australian astronomers