My name is Dr. Michelle Lochner. I am currently a Researcher joint between the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences and the Square Kilometre Array SA. I work on developing new machine learning and statistical algorithms for large astronomical surveys like the SKA and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).Before moving back to South Africa, I did a postdoc at University College London. I worked on photometric supernova classification in the era of LSST, with Hiranya Peiris, Ofer Lahav and Jason McEwen as well as new data analysis techniques for the SKA with Filipe Abdalla.
I did my PhD at the University of Cape Town and the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences with Bruce Bassett. My thesis was entitled "New Applications of Statistics in Astronomy and Cosmology" and consisted largely of my work on BEAMS, dealing with contamination in supernova datasets, and on BIRO, a new algorithm for jointly inferring scientific and calibration parameters directly from a radio interferometric dataset without the need for creating an image.
Click here for a list of publications
Click here for a list of publications
