Adam McMaster

I’m an astronomy PhD student with the Open University studying variable stars in the SuperWASP all sky survey.

Education

  • 2020 – present: The Open University, PhD, Variable stars in the SuperWASP all sky survey
  • 2012 – 2020: The Open University, BSc Natural Sciences (Astronomy and Planetary Science), Upper Second-class Honours
  • 2006 – 2009: University of Leicester, BSc Computer Science, First Class Honours

Honours

Memberships

  • 2021 – present: UKRI Public Engagement Early-Career Researcher (PEER) Forum
  • 2020 – present: Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society

Academic Publications

See Academic Publications for a full list of publications, including those where my contributions were only minor. You can also find a list of my publications on ORCiD and ADS. Notable publications are listed below.

2022

  • Norton, Andrew J., Hugh J. Dickinson, Adam McMaster, Matthew Middleton, and Richard G. West. ‘A SuperWASP Light Curve Displaying a Single Long-Duration Transit: A Jupiter Size Exoplanet in a Very Distant Orbit?’ Research Notes of the AAS 6, no. 4 (April 2022): 84. https://doi.org/10.3847/2515-5172/ac6811.

2021

  • Adam McMaster et al., ‘VeSPA: The SuperWASP Variable Star Photometry Archive’, Research Notes of the AAS 5, no. 10 (October 2021): 228, https://doi.org/10.3847/2515-5172/ac2de8.
  • Thiemann, Heidi B, Andrew J Norton, Hugh J Dickinson, Adam McMaster, and Ulrich C Kolb. ‘SuperWASP Variable Stars: Classifying Light Curves Using Citizen Science’. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 502, no. 1 (2 February 2021): 1299–1311. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab140.

Other Publications

Conference Presentations

  • Black Hole Hunters: A Future Microlensing Search for Quiescent Black Holes With LSST?, Rubin Project and Community Workshop 2023, Tucson, AZ, 2023
  • Black Hole Hunters: A Microlensing Search for Quiescent Black Holes, NAM 2023, Cardiff University, UK, 2023
  • First Microlensing Results from the SuperWASP: Black Hole Hunters citizen science project (PDF, video), 5th European Variable Stars Meeting, Barcelona, Spain, 2023
  • SuperWASP: Black Hole Hunters – First Results, SEPnet Student-Led Conference, The Imitation Game: A Growing Affinity Between Simulations and Observations of Our Universe, Milton Keynes, UK, 2023. Member of organising committee.
  • SuperWASP: Black Hole Hunters, REINFORCE workshop: Fostering citizens’ role in the advance of ground-breaking research in fundamental physics, European Gravitational Observatory, Italy, 2022 (hybrid/remote, invited)
  • Black Hole Hunters: A citizen science search for black hole self-lensing (poster), NAM 2022, University of Warwick, UK, 2022
  • SuperWASP VeSPA: A public archive of volunteer-labelled variable stars (poster), C*Sci, 2022 (online)
  • SuperWASP and VeSPA: Giving Results Back to Citizen Scientists (poster), NAM 2021, Bath, UK, 2021 (online)
  • VESPA: The SuperWASP Variable Star Photometry Archive (poster), EAS 2021, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2021 (online)
  • An Interactive Catalogue of Variable Stars, STFC Introductory Course in Astronomy for New Research Students, Armagh, UK, 2021 (online). Winner of 1st prize, Best Student Talk.
  • Large-Scale Citizen Science with the Zooniverse, Petabytes to Science/Data Inclusion Revolution, Cambridge, MA, 2019
  • Zooniverse Project Building Tutorial, Petabytes to Science/Data Inclusion Revolution, Cambridge, MA, 2019
  • Building the Zooniverse into Your Pipeline, Hotwiring the Transient Universe, Northwestern University, 2019
  • Easier Development and Reproducibility With Docker, Wetton Workshop: Planning for Surprises – Data Driven Discovery in the era of Large Data, University of Oxford, UK, 2018
  • Building the Zooniverse Platform, Defining Principles For Mobile Apps and Platforms Development in Citizen Science, Gothenburg University, Sweden, 2017
  • The Zooniverse Community, Participatory Engagement Master Class, Maynooth University, Ireland, 2017

Outreach and Public Engagement

  • How Far is That Star? (public talk), World Space Week, Online, 2022
  • Black Hole and Seek (festival), British Science Festival, Leicester, 2022
  • Astronomy Needs You! (chaired panel discussion), British Science Week, Online, 2022
  • How Far is That Star? (public talk), Pint of Science, Birmingham, 2022
  • Astronomy on Tap Jena (interview), Online, 2022
  • Royal Society Summer Exhibition (festival), London, 2018
  • BlueDot (festival), Jodrell Bank, 2017
  • BlueDot (festival), Jodrell Bank, 2016

Professional Experience

  • September 2022 – December 2022: The Brilliant Club, Impact and Analysis Intern
  • 2014 – 2020: University of Oxford, Zooniverse Infrastructure Engineer
  • 2011 – 2014: Rock Kitchen Harris, Web Developer
  • 2002 – Present: Valcato Hosting, Director