Luke Drury (astrophysicist)
Luke O’Connor Drury (born 1953 in Dublin) is an Irish mathematician and astrophysicist at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) with research interests in plasma physics, particle acceleration, gas dynamics, shock waves, and cosmic rays. He was President of the Royal Irish Academy from 2011 to 2014.[1][2]
Education and career
In 1969 Drury won first place at the Aer Lingus Young Scientists’ exhibition, now called the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.[3]
He got a BA in pure mathematics and experimental physics from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 1975 and earned his Ph.D. in astrophysics from University of Cambridge in 1979, writing a thesis on "Some fluid dynamical problems in Astrophysics" , supervised by John M. Stewart.[4][5]
From 1980 to 1986 he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg with Professor H. J. Voelk.[1]
In 1986 he returned to Dublin where he became Senior Professor in the School of Cosmic Physics and head of the then Cosmic Ray Section (now Astronomy and Astrophysics Section) at DIAS.[6]
He served as interim Director of The Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) in 2006.[7]
From 2007 to 2018 he was an honorary Andrews Professor of Astronomy at TCD.[8]
He was President of the Royal Irish Academy from 2011 to 2014.[9]
Drury retired in 2018 but continues to work on issues of policy for science, in particular open access and open science, as a board member of the federation of All European Academies (ALLEA). He was lead author on the ALLEA response to Plan S.[10]
He is a son of psychiatrist and philosopher Maurice O'Connor Drury.[11]
Selected publications
- On normal modes of gas sheets and discs (1980) MNRAS 193 337
- An introduction to the theory of diffusive shock acceleration of energetic particles in tenuous plasmas (1983) Rep. Prog. Phys. 46 973.
- Simple adaptive grids for 1-D initial value problems (1987) J. Comp. Phys. 69 175 (with E. Dorf)
- The gamma-ray visibility of supernova remnants. A test of cosmic ray origin (1994) A&A 287 959 (with F. Aharonian and H. J. Voelk)
- Escaping the accelerator: how, when and in what numbers do cosmic rays get out of supernova remnants? (2011) MNRAS 415 1807
References
- ^ a b Professor Luke Drury Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 2020
- ^ Luke Drury, ALLEA Board Member Royal Irish Academy
- ^ Former winners reflect on the Young Scientist Exhibition By Dan Griffin, The Irish Times, Jan 8, 2014
- ^ TCD Physicist Elected President of the Royal Irish Academy 18th March 2011, Trinity College Dublin
- ^ Luke Drury at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ^ Professor Luke Drury When Experts Disagree
- ^ Professor Luke Drury (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies) appointed as interim Director ICHEC: Key Milestones 2006
- ^ Andrews Professors of Astronomy: 1999-Present Luke Drury (Honorary) TCD School of Physics
- ^ March 2011 – Professor Luke Drury, Director of the School of Cosmic Physics, elected President of the Royal Irish Academy Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
- ^ ALLEA response to Plan S European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities
- ^ The Selected Writings of Maurice O’Connor Drury review by Patrick Masterson, The Irish Times, Jan 6, 2018