Person

Duffy, Alan

Occupation
Astrophysicist and Science communicator
Website
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9636-1809

Summary

Professor Alan Duffy is Pro-Vice Chancellor of Flagship Initiatives at Swinburne University of Technology, bringing together diverse research teams and industry and government stakeholders to undertake transformative innovation programmes in flagship sectors of hydrogen, renewable technologies, AI, space and aerospace, MedTech and health.

Alan was the inaugural Director of the Space Technology and Industry Institute, at Swinburne, and helped communities and companies solve their challenges on Earth through space, with multidisciplinary teams across the University's domains of aerospace engineering, data science / AI, astrophysics, and material science.

His research background is in creating simulated universes on supercomputers to understand how galaxies like the Milky Way form within vast clouds of dark matter, using SPH and N-Body+SAM techniques. He then tries to find this dark matter as a Chief Investigator of SABRE, the world's first dark matter detector in the Southern Hemisphere, housed in the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory. As Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics, he utilises a full range of other observational experiments (including microlensing, gamma-ray emission and galaxy velocity field tracers) to constrain the properties of dark matter.

Alan is also the cofounder and CEO of mDetect, a spin-off company from his dark matter research, that uses particles from space to scan through rock for mineral exploration, identification of structural weaknesses in tailings dams, and subsidence/air gaps below critical infrastructure.

He is a well recognised science communicator, being able to explain complex scientific discoveries to a wide range of academic and general audiences, through a wide range of media, including planetarium shows.

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Chronology

2005
Education - Master of Physics (MPhys), University of Manchester
2009
Education - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) [Astronomy and Astrophysics), University of Manchester
2009 - 2012
Career position - Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Western Australia
2012 - 2014
Career position - Postdoctoral Research Fellow , University of Melbourne
2014 - 2017
Career position - Research Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology
2017 - 2020
Career position - Associate Professor, Swinburne University of Technology
2019 - 2022
Career position - Member, Board of Advisors, Questacon, Canberra
2020 -
Career position - Chief Executive Officer and Founder, mDetect [muon detection technology company]
2020 -
Career position - Professor, Swinburne University of Technology
2021 - 2023
Career position - founding Director, Space Technology and Industry Institute, Swinburne University of Technology
2023 -
Career position - Pro Vice Chancellor Flagship Initiatives, Swinburne University of Technology
2025 -
Career position - Director, Swinburne Ventures Limited
2026 -
Career position - Director, Bionics Institute

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Published resources

Resources

See also

Ken McInnes

Created: 20 May 2026, Last modified: 21 May 2026

EOAS ID: biogs/P008044b.htm

This Edition: 2026 May - New Office
Chunnup - Gariwerd calendar - Winter: late May to end of July - season of cockatoos
Reference: https://www.bom.gov.au/resources/indigenous-weather-knowledge/indigenous-seasonal-calendars/gariwerd-calendar#bom-anchor-list__item-chunnup-season-of-cockatoos

Publisher: Swinburne University of Technology.

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"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260