I am Director of the Astrophysics Research Centre in the School of Maths and Physics at Queen's University Belfast.  I hold an ERC Advanced grant  (2012 - 2017) for work on ultraluminous supernovae and their progenitor stars. 

I am a previous holder of a European Young Investigator (EURYI) Award and PPARC Advanced Fellowship. I have held positions at  the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge and the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes on La Palma.   A CV can be found here. 

My group works on supernovae and the deaths of massive stars. We have leading roles in two large  international projects to study supernovae and the transient Universe.  We are partners in the Pan-STARRS project to scientifically exploit the 3.5 year survey of the PS1 Science consortium.  I am PI and Survey Director of PESSTO, the Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey of Transient Objects.   This is one of two ESO public spectroscopic surveys, with 90N per year on the New Technology Telescope at La Silla.

For the last decade I have been searching for the progenitors core-collapse supernovae in images of galaxies taken before explosion, much like the one shown above, that I took with the Hubble Space Telescope. The latest results of this work have been published in Smartt, Eldridge, Crockett & Maund (2009). My review article on this topic for the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics,  be accessed here : "Progenitors of core-collapse supernovae", S.J. Smartt, 2009, ARA&A, 47, 63

My publications (ADS link)

Astrophysics Research Centre
School of Mathematics and Physics
Queen's University Belfast,
Belfast BT7 1NN,
Northern Ireland UK
Tel (direct)  +44 2890  971245
Tel (recept.) +44 2890  973941
Email:S.Smartt_AT_qub_ac_uk
Directions to my office : 1st floor of main Physics Building, Office F045