Powerhouse Wizard 2007, Dr Naomi McClure-Griffiths
Powerhouse Wizard 2007
In November 2007, the Powerhouse Museum announced Dr Naomi McClure-Griffiths as the 2007 Powerhouse Wizard.
As the first female winner and the fourth Powerhouse Wizard, Naomi was delighted to receive the award. Naomi said that she was "looking forward to working with the Powerhouse Museum during the next year to show off some fun and exciting astronomy.” Since then, she has taken part in the Museum’s exciting public programs in 2008, including talks at the Powerhouse Discovery Centre in Castle Hill and the Sydney Observatory’s Festival of the Stars in July.
An astrophysicist with CSIRO, Naomi explores the Milky Way using radioastronomy – and her research has improved the way we understand our home galaxy. Understanding a subject as vast as the Milky Way is no easy feat – but Naomi isn’t daunted. She describes the Milky Way as a “cosmic octopus [with] several ‘arms’ that curve out from its centre.” As a ‘Galactic Octopus Wrestler’, Naomi has discovered a previously undiscovered arm (or tentacle) of the Milky Way and doubled the number of known supershells that exist in our galaxy.
Naomi’s research continues in her role as the principal investigator on the Galactic All-Sky Survey (GASS). GASS is a major international project aiming to map all of the hydrogen gas in and near the Milky Way. The survey is revealing unexpected discoveries about how the Milky Way was formed, how it has evolved and how it plays rough with its neighbours, the Magellanic Clouds.
If you missed Naomi's talk at the Powerhouse Discovery Centre in Castle Hill, have a look at the podcast