Quentin Parker

Quentin Parker obtained a BSc(Hons) in 1982 and a PhD (1986) from the University of St.Andrews in Scotland. He joined the faculty at Macquarie in April 2002 as the joint AAO/Macquarie lecturer in astronomy. Prior to that Quentin worked at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh (1986-1992), Anglo-Australian observatory (1992-1999) as an instrument scientist/astronomer and as a senior research fellow at the Institute for Astronomy (1999-2002). Quentin was responsible for helping to develop and manage the FLAIR-II fibre-spectroscopy system at the UKST and had also worked extensively with the new 6dF robotic fibre system that replaced FLAIR-II.

Quentin was also P.I. for the UKST H-alpha survey. Research activities are mainly but not exclusively associated with Wide Field Astronomy, including large-scale redshift surveys, low-surface brightness galaxies, supernova remnants and especially Planetary Nebulae. He has supervised and co-supervised a significant number of PhD, MSc  and honours students to successful completion and is always keen to attract students. Quentin is currently Chair of the IAU working group on sky-surveys, head of the RAVE survey data management group and is director of the new MQ research centre in Astronomy, Astophysics & Astrophotonics. He also heads both the H-alpha international survey consortium and the associated Macquarie/AAO/Strasbourg H-alpha (MASH) Planetary nebulae team.