Dr Suhail Dhawan

School of Physics and Astronomy
Assistant Professor in Astrophysics
125th Anniversary Fellow

Contact details

Email: s.dhawan@bham.ac.uk

Address: School of Physics and Astronomy
Physics West
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Suhail Dhawan is an Assistant Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy, a 125th Anniversary Fellow at University of Birmingham, and PI of UKRI/ERC starting grant project NGCOSMO. His research interests are in measuring the expansion rate of the universe using bright explosions (eg Type Ia supernovae in the night sky). Suhail uses time-domain surveys and synergies across different instruments to study the origin of these explosions and the ultimate fate of the universe. He works on strong gravitational lensing of supernovae as a new probe of cosmology.

Qualifications

PhD, Natural Sciences, Technical University Munich and European Southern Observatory, 2017
MSc, Astrophysics, University College London, 2013
BSc (Hons), Physics, University of Delhi, 2009
Member, Royal Astronomical Society
Member, Astronomical Society of India

Biography

Dr Suhail Dhawan is a time-domain astronomer who is interested in Type Ia supernovae and their role as distance indicators in cosmology. His science focus is on measuring the Hubble Constant which can tell us about the contents and dynamics of the universe by using the local distance ladder and strong gravitational lensing. Suhail led the first studies to measure time-delays for a lensed TypeIa supernova.

Suhail is currently the co-lead for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s strong lensing topical team. This observatory, expected to begin data collection in 2025, will make a video of the night sky once every few days in multiple colours, to understand some of the brightest explosions in the sky. He is currently the board representative for University of Birmingham in the LSST:UK project. Suhail has previously led observing campaigns with the Gemini, Liverpool and SOAR telescopes as well as the Cosmology working group of the Zwicky Transient Facility, which is an ongoing survey for astronomical transients. Prior to joining University of Birmingham, Dr Dhawan was a Marie-Curie Individual Fellow and Kavli Fellow at Cambridge and a research fellow at Stockholm University. IHe completed his PhD at the European Southern Observatory, Garching and Technical University Munich.

Suhail is passionate about mentoring students, especially from marginalised backgrounds. He is currently taking graduate and masters’ students and encourage motivated students to contact him for projects. Suhail has a long-standing interest in outreach activities like public talks and popular science articles.

Teaching

2026 – Cosmic Evolution of Structure, Module Lead

2024– Lecturing, Topics in Astrophysics, Year 3, Cambridge (co-taught with C. Clarke)
2022- Supervision, Relativity, Year 3, Cambridge
2021- Supervision, Cosmology, Year 4, Cambridge
2019- Experimental Physics, Stockholm University

Postgraduate supervision

Astrophysics and cosmology projects. Previous supervised three PhD students and current supervising one student at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge.

Research

Dr Dhawan's current research interests are in measuring the Hubble Constant. For this he uses supernovae, a bright class of astronomical transients, events that change in brightness over relatively short timescales. Type Ia supernovae shine as bright as entire galaxies and produce as much radioactive material as the sun. They can be seen from faraway distances and all have nearly the same brightness after empirical corrections. This makes them key probes for measuring the Hubble Constant and properties of dark energy. Strong gravitational lensing is a new window to study supernovae and use multiple images of the same source to measure the Hubble Constant.

Suhail is offering PhD projects along these interests.

Find available PhD projects.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Pierel, JDR, Hayes, EE, Millon, M, Larison, C, Mamuzic, E, Acebron, A, Agrawal, A, Bergamini, P, Cha, S, Dhawan, S, Diego, JM, Frye, BL, Gilman, D, Granata, G, Grillo, C, Jee, MJ, Kamieneski, PS, Koekemoer, AM, Meena, AK, Newman, AB, Oguri, M, Padilla-Gonzalez, E, Poidevin, F, Rosati, P, Schuldt, S, Strolger, LG, Suyu, SH, Thorp, S & Zitrin, A 2026, 'Cosmology with Supernova Encore in the Strong Lensing Cluster MACS J0138–2155: Time Delays and Hubble Constant Measurement', The Astrophysical Journal, vol. 998, no. 2, 219. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae3159

Hayes, EE, Dhawan, S, Thorp, S, Pierel, JDR & Arendse, N 2026, 'The case for space: estimating precise time delays from ground- and space-based observations of lensed supernovae with Glimpse', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 546, no. 3, stag113. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag113

Strong Lensing Science Collaboration, Ponte Perez, AI, Smith, GP, Nicholl, M, Arendse, N, Ryczanowski, D & Dhawan, S 2026, 'The impact of ultraviolet suppression on the rates and properties of strongly lensed Type IIn supernovae detected by LSST', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 546, no. 2, stag009. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag009

Hayes, EE, Dhawan, S, Mandel, KS, Jones, DO, Foley, RJ, Thorp, S, Grayling, M, Ward, SM, Do, A, Langeroodi, D, Earl, N, de Soto, KM, Narayan, G, Auchettl, K, de Boer, T, Chambers, KC, Coulter, DA, Gall, C, Gao, H, Izzo, L, Lin, C-C, Magnier, EA, Rest, A & Wang, Q 2025, 'Characterizing the standardization properties of type ia supernovae in the z band with hierarchical Bayesian modelling', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 541, no. 2, pp. 1948-1968. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf1056

Johansson, J, Perley, DA, Goobar, A, Wise, JL, Qin, Y-J, McGrath, Z, Schulze, S, Lemon, C, Gangopadhyay, A, Tsalapatas, K, Andreoni, I, Bellm, EC, Bloom, JS, Dekany, R, Dhawan, S, Fransson, C, Fremling, C, Graham, MJ, Groom, SL, Gruen, D, Hall, XJ, Helou, G, Kasliwal, M, Laher, RR, Lunnan, R, Mahabal, AA, Miller, AA, Mörtsell, E, Nordin, J, Hjortlund, JO, Rich, RM, Riddle, RL, Singh, A, Sollerman, J, Townsend, A & Yan, L 2025, 'Discovery of SN 2025wny: A strongly gravitationally lensed superluminous supernova at z = 2.01', Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol. 995, no. 1, ae1d61. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ae1d61

Dhawan, S, Popovic, B & Goobar, A 2025, 'The axis of systematic bias in SN Ia cosmology and implications for DESI 2024 results', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 540, no. 2, pp. 1626-1634. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf779

Dhawan, S, Mortsell, E, Johansson, J, Goobar, A, Rigault, M, Smith, M, Maguire, K, Nordin, J, Dimitriadis, G, Nugent, PE, Galbany, L, Sollerman, J, Kenworthy, WD, de Jaeger, T, Terwel, JH, Kim, Y-L, Burgaz, U, Rosnet, P, Helou, G, Purdum, J, Groom, SL, Laher, R & Healy, B 2025, 'ZTF SN Ia DR2: Cosmology-independent constraints on Type Ia supernova standardisation from supernova siblings', Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 702, A190. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202450392

Hu, Y & Dhawan, S 2024, 'Constrain spatial curvature and dark energy with strong lenses and complementary probes: A forecast for next-generation surveys', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 535, no. 4, pp. 3211-3217. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae2525

Graham, ML, Rollins, M, Knop, RA, Dhawan, S, Fonseca Alvarez, G, Phillips, CA, Nir, G, Ramey, E & Nugent, PE 2024, 'Deep drilling in the time domain with DECam - II: Characterizing the light curves of candidates in the extragalactic fields', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 535, no. 4, pp. 3307-3323. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae2533

Arendse, N, Dhawan, S, Sagués Carracedo, A, Peiris, HV, Goobar, A, Wojtak, R, Alves, C, Biswas, R, Huber, S, Birrer, S & The LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration 2024, 'Detecting strongly lensed type Ia supernovae with LSST', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 531, no. 3, pp. 3509-3523. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae1356

Hayes, EE, Thorp, S, Mandel, KS, Arendse, N, Grayling, M & Dhawan, S 2024, 'GAUSSN: Bayesian time-delay estimation for strongly lensed supernovae', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 530, no. 4, pp. 3942-3963. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae1086

Mukhopadhyay, U, Haridasu, S, Sen, AA & Dhawan, S 2024, 'Inferring dark energy properties from the scale factor parametrization', Physical Review D, vol. 110, no. 12, 123516. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.110.123516

Pierel, JDR, Frye, BL, Pascale, M, Caminha, GB, Chen, W, Dhawan, S, Gilman, D, Grayling, M, Huber, S, Kelly, P, Thorp, S, Arendse, N, Birrer, S, Bronikowski, M, Cañameras, R, Coe, D, Cohen, SH, Conselice, CJ, Driver, SP, DŚilva, JCJ, Engesser, M, Foo, N, Gall, C, Garuda, N, Grillo, C, Grogin, NA, Henderson, J, Hjorth, J, Jansen, RA, Johansson, J, Kamieneski, PS, Koekemoer, AM, Larison, C, Marshall, MA, Moustakas, LA, Nonino, M, Ortiz, R, Petrushevska, T, Pirzkal, N, Robotham, A, Ryan, RE, Schuldt, S, Strolger, LG, Summers, J, Suyu, SH, Treu, T, Willmer, CNA, Windhorst, RA, Yan, H, Zitrin, A, Acebron, A, Chakrabarti, S, Coulter, DA, Fox, OD, Huang, X, Jha, SW, Li, G, Mazzali, PA, Meena, AK, Pérez-Fournon, I, Poidevin, F, Rest, A & Riess, AG 2024, 'JWST Photometric Time-delay and Magnification Measurements for the Triply Imaged Type Ia “SN H0pe” at z = 1.78', Astrophysical Journal, vol. 967, no. 1, 50. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad3c43

Tinyanont, S, Foley, RJ, Taggart, K, Davis, KW, LeBaron, N, Andrews, JE, Bustamante-Rosell, MJ, Camacho-Neves, Y, Chornock, R, Coulter, DA, Galbany, L, Jha, SW, Kilpatrick, CD, Kwok, LA, Larison, C, Pierel, JR, Siebert, MR, Aldering, G, Auchettl, K, Bloom, JS, Dhawan, S, Filippenko, AV, French, KD, Gagliano, A, Grayling, M, Howell, DA, Jacobson-Galán, WV, Jones, DO, Le Saux, X, Macias, P, Mandel, KS, McCully, C, Padilla Gonzalez, E, Rest, A, Rho, J, Rojas-Bravo, C, Skrutskie, MF, Thorp, S, Wang, Q & Ward, SM 2024, 'Keck Infrared Transient Survey. I. Survey Description and Data Release 1', Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, vol. 136, no. 1, 014201. https://doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/ad1b39

Letter

Lemon, C, Goobar, A, Johansson, J, Mörtsell, E, Schulze, S, Andreoni, I, Bochenek, A, Brennan, SJ, Busmann, M, Coughlin, M, Das, KK, Dhawan, S, Fremling, C, Gangopadhyay, A, Gruen, D, Hall, XJ, Ho, AYQ, Kasliwal, MM, Perley, DA, Rigault, M, Schroeder, G, Smith, M, Sollerman, J, Somalwar, JJ, Stein, R, Thorp, S, Townsend, A, Wise, JL, Yan, L, Arendse, N, Bellm, EC, Chen, TX, Drake, A, Masci, FJ, Purdum, J, Smith, R, Hinkle, JT, Rivera-Thorsen, TE, Shappee, BJ, Tucker, MA, Aguilar, J, Ahlen, S, Aldering, G, BenZvi, S, Bianchi, D, Brooks, D, Claybaugh, T, de la Macorra, A, Della Costa, J, Dey, A, Doel, P, Flaugher, B, Font-Ribera, A, Forero-Romero, JE, Gaztañaga, E, Gontcho A. Gontcho, S, Gutierrez, G, Huterer, D, Ishak, M, Jimenez, J, Joyce, D, Juneau, S, Kehoe, R, Kim, AG, Kirkby, D, Kisner, T, Kremin, A, Lahav, O, Landriau, M, Le Guillou, L, Levi, ME, Manera, M, Meisner, A, Miquel, R, Moustakas, J, Nadathur, S, O’Connor, B, Palanque-Delabrouille, N, Palmese, A, Percival, WJ, Pérez-Ràfols, I, Poppett, C, Prada, F, Rossi, G, Sanchez, E, Schlegel, D, Schubnell, M, Shafieloo, A, Silber, J, Sprayberry, D, Tarlé, G, Weaver, BA & Zou, H 2026, 'A Natural ≳100× Telescope: Discovery of the Strongly Lensed Type II SN 2025mkn at z = 1.37', The Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol. 1003, no. 2, L47. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ae6780

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