David Jess Email & Phone Number

I am currently a Professor (Full Professor) within the School of Mathematics and Physics at Queen’s University Belfast, and I work within the Astrophysics Research Centre. ****************BACKGROUND****************Previously, I was employed as the “ROSA Instrument Scientist”, and was part of the team responsible for assembling, testing and commissioning the ROSA instrument at the National Solar Observatory, Sacramento Peak, USA, back in 2008. Following on, I was an STFC Post-Doctoral Fellow (QUB; 2009-2012), a Marie Curie Fellow (KU Leuven, Belgium; 2012-2013), and an advanced STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellow (QUB; 2013-2018). I was made permanent academic staff at QUB in 2013, promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2017 and Reader in 2019, before being made a Professor in 2021.*****************ASTROPHYSICS*****************My main research interests involve the design and construction of optical instrumentation to observe dynamic processes occurring on our nearest star, the Sun. Recently, my team and I have built and commissioned a near-ultraviolet fibre-fed imaging spectropolarimeter, which is a prototype instrument for the National Large Solar Telescope (NLST) that is currently under construction in India. This prototype instrument is a novel 'first' in the astrophysics community and will pave the way for future developments over the coming years. ********************GLOBAL NETWORK********************It is crucial to examine and investigate the data stemming from instrumentation I have developed. In order to facilitate this, I am a founding member of the Waves in the Lower Solar Atmosphere (WaLSA; www.WaLSA.team) consortium, which is dedicated to promoting international collaborative research efforts linked to wave studies in the Sun’s atmosphere.*********************SPORTS ANALYTICS*********************In addition, I (alongside Dr Samuel Grant @ QUB) lead research projects in Sports Analytics with our industry partner STATSports. These sports-based projects enable the processing, statistical, and data visualisation techniques developed within astrophysics to be applied in a novel manner to sports science. At present, we have partner sports clubs spanning grass-roots, semi- and full-professional soccer, Gaelic football (GAA), and rugby. I am eager to develop these links in the near future, with our statistical-based approaches enabling injury prevention across a wide range of disciplines, including female sport.