Tyrone investigates and develops methods of finding hidden black holes in our Galaxy, the Milky Way. He is a PhD student at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy, the Curtin node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR). Specifically, he is interested in ‘stellar-mass’ black holes: black holes that come from the deaths of stars much more massive than our Sun. Current estimates place the number of black holes in our Galaxy at approximately 100 million, and yet we confidently know of only 30. Black holes, regions of spacetime that not even light can escape from, are the most mysterious objects in the universe and are excellent laboratories for exploring and understanding the universe. They give rise to many highly energetic and exotic phenomena, enabling us to test the laws of physics in regimes of strong gravity.

Tyrone leverages data from an array of state-of-the-art telescopes around the world and in space to study and search for black holes. He works on developing new techniques for identifying black hole candidates through searching for imprints of their formation and signatures of their presence. He is also interested in studying and characterising newly identified black hole candidates to help refine and develop existing methods of searching for black holes. Finding more black holes will help us better characterise the total Galactic population, understand how the massive stars from which they are born evolve and die, and provide more exciting laboratories to continue pushing forward the frontier of our understanding of the universe.