Staff Profile

I am an Observational Cosmologist and Ernest Rutherford Fellow at Newcastle University.

I completed my PhD at The University of Nottingham in 2016. I then moved to Durham University (2016-2023), including a Royal Society Short Industry Fellowship (2021 - 2022) where I took a placement at the Biotech company concr (https://concr.co). I started at Newcastle March 2024.

I have appeared on BBC4's The Sky At Night, for my discovery of an ultra-massive blackhole. I have also been interview on LBC with Andrew Marr, GB News and Times radio.

My personal website is here: https://jamesnightingale.net

Cosmology: My cosmology research uses gravitational lensing to study the most massive black holes, the smallest dark matter clumps and the most distant Universe. I’m the lead developer of PyAutoLens, open source software for analyzing gravitational lenses. You can read more about my Cosmology research on my personal website here.

Cancer: I collaborate with healthcare researchers on applying the statistical techniques I developed for Cosmology to improve cancer treatments. This uses the statistics software PyAutoFit that I lead development of. You can read more about my cancer research on my personal website here.

A list of publications I have authored or co-authored can be found https://jamesnightingale.net/publications/