My masters thesis on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) involved determining the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR) instruments filter function to improve the power spectrum analysis of early density fluctuations in the universe.

The work for my Ph.D. included comparison of the COBE data at microwave frequencies to the ROSAT All-Sky Survey measuring the X-ray sky around 1 keV. Various astrophysical processes can be tested by this analysis. Future satellite missions such as the European CMB project Planck Surveyor, and Rosita, a project for a high resolution X-ray survey in the soft and hard band, will greatly improve the potential of this kind of studies.

I am involved in several projects here in Cambridge including taking and analysing data with the Very Small Array (VSA) to measure primary and secondary CMB anisotropies, a study of the large-scale structure of hot gas in the universe, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect in clusters of galaxies observed with the Ryle Telescope and preparational work for the Planck Surveyor. In the near future the Arcminute MicroKelvin Imager (AMI) will allow us to search systematically for clusters of galaxies at any redshift via the SZ effect.