Staff Profile

I am a Senior Lecturer in Astrophysics and a Royal Society University Research Fellow. I completed my PhD at the University of Durham in 2012, and was awarded the 2012 Michael Penston Thesis Prize, for the best astronomy PhD thesis in the UK that year, by the Royal Astronomical Society. I then moved to the University of Amsterdam, first as a postdoc (2012-2014) and then as an NWO Veni research fellow (2014-2017). I moved to Oxford to start my University Research Fellowship in October 2017, and started my Lectureship here Newcastle in October 2021. My personal website is here: https://adingram.bitbucket.io.

I use X-ray observations and theoretical modelling to probe the environment of accreting black holes and neutron stars. This helps us learn about the very strong gravitational fields close to black hole event horizons, and how these objects formed and grew to their current sizes. I study quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) – nearly periodic changes in the observed X-ray brightness of the accreting plasma – and the idea that these result from relativistic precession. I also use the variability of reflected X-rays to constrain the geometry close to the black hole and measure its mass. I also use X-ray polarimetry to learn about black holes and neutron stars, a field that was revolutionised by the launch of IXPE in December 2021.

A full list of all my refereed publications can be found here.