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.