GOTO member Dr Martin Dyer receives the Patricia Tomkins Thesis Prize

GOTO team member Dr Martin Dyer of the University of Sheffield has been awarded the Patricia Tomkins Thesis Prize by the Royal Astronomical Society, for the best thesis in instrumentation science for astronomy and geophysics. Martin joined the GOTO project as a PhD student in 2015, and submitted his doctoral thesis “A telescope control and scheduling system for the Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer” in 2019. Martin’s contribution to the project focused on commissioning the first GOTO telescope in La Palma, as well as developing the software required for GOTO to operate entirely autonomously. Since being awarded his PhD in early 2020 Martin has continued to work on the GOTO project as a postdoctoral researcher.