Joss Bland-Hawthorn

In 2007, Joss moved from the Australian Astronomical Observatory to take up an ARC Federation Fellow Professorship at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics. In 2010, he was the Visiting Fellow at Merton College and Leverhulme Professor to Oxford. In 2014, he was awarded the ARC Laureate Fellowship. He has won numerous awards including the Muhlmann Award from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (2011), the Jackson Gwilt Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society (2012), the WH Steel Medal from the Australian Optical Society (2015), and the Peter McGregor Team Prize (2016) for the development of SAMI. He was the 2016 NSW Scientist of the Year.

Joss is one of Australia's most senior astrophysicists. He is Director of the Sydney Institute for Astronomy (SIfA), a co-founder of the Institute of Photonics and Optical Science (IPOS), and Project Leader for the Sydney Astrophotonic Instrumentation Labs (SAIL). He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Optical Society of America, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Science (Harvard).

In 2017, Joss was awarded the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal from the Australian Academy of Science, the first astronomer to receive this recognition in over 40 years. In 2018, he was the Miller Professor to Berkeley. In 2020, he was awarded the Walter Boas medal for physics. He was awarded honoris Doctors Causa from the University of Aix-Marseille, France (2022) and Lund University, Sweden (2026). He served on the board of the Annual Reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics (2013-2023) and is currently serving on the board of Astronomy Australia Ltd (2022-2028). Joss has served as Director of SIfA since January 2015.

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