(Figures given are based on statistics obtained on 7th February 2012)

Since my first publication in 2002, I have produced a total of 46 peer-reviewed publications, 25 of which were as first author. To date, these publications have accrued a total of 473 citations, giving me an h-index of 14, or an equivalent m-index of 1.56. The significant fraction of my publications for which I am the first author (>50%) reflects my ability to devise, organise, and execute highly innovative and significant programs of research.

This citation rate places me within the top 15% of active researchers across the whole of astronomy[1]. In normalised citations, my performance is even stronger, with 81 normalised citations in the last 5 years putting me in the top 10% of all astronomical researchers. When considered against papers published across the whole of Physics, my work is very strongly cited. My publications over the last five years were cited 4.59 times as frequently as the average paper across Physics[2]. This is a remarkable level of performance for someone just 7 years out of his Ph.D.

Throughout my career, I have worked to identify and exploit links between research fields that otherwise fail to cross-pollinate. My work with Prof. Olivier Mousis (Besançon, France), for example, has featured innovative combinations of chemical modelling and dynamical simulations, leading to results that have created a framework by which future observations will determine the precise formation region of the Solar system’s icy bodies.

My work with Dr. Patryk Sofia Lykawka (Osaka, Japan) has revealed a new and potentially key source for the Solar system’s Centaur population, work that has already been widely cited. Our results have also shown that the dramatic and chaotic planetary migration proposed by the Nice model, which currently dominates the thoughts of those attempting to explain the evolution of our Solar system, is not necessary in order for the system to evolve to its current state. In light of new results that suggest the proposed “Late Heavy Bombardment” of the inner Solar system may never have occurred, our work provides an alternative hypothesis that can explain the current state of the Solar system without invoking such dramatic behaviour.

My application of dynamical methods to the question of the shielding offered to Earth by the planet Jupiter remains the only comprehensive investigation of that problem, and my results have shattered the paradigm of “Jupiter – the shield”. These results will have a significant impact on the search for habitable planets beyond the Solar system over the coming years, forcing researchers across Astrobiology to revisit their ideas on the key factors required for a planet to be truly habitable.

On the basis of my internationally significant work on dynamics, I was brought into the early stages of planning for three major international observing programs using the Herschel infrared space observatory. These programs were cumulatively awarded approximately 800 hours of observing time on Herschel, with a dollar-equivalent value of ~$35 million. In particular, I prepared the target list used by the highly successful “TNOs are Cool” program, which was awarded 372 hours of time as an Open Time Key Project. In addition, that project team was awarded over 130 additional hours through a number of subsidiary proposals focussing on different dynamical populations of object in the outer Solar system. My dynamical studies also led to my being recruited to provide dynamical expertise to the DEBRIS consortium, undertaking an unbiased survey of nearby stars using the Herschel space observatory as an Open Time Key Project.

On the basis of the quality and variety of my multi-disciplinary work on Astrobiology, I have been invited to sit on the managing committees of the international Astrobiology Society and the Astrobiology Society of Great Britain. I helped to organise the Astrobiology Society of Great Britain’s 2010 conference, chairing a session on Exoplanets, and am responsible for the recruitment of new student members of the Astrobiology Society. In addition, I recently took up a position on the editorial board of the International Journal of Astrobiology, a post that will run, in the first instance, for a period of three years.

Since 2002, I have given regular conference talks, presented a number of conference posters, and given research seminars across Europe, Japan and Australia. My seminars at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and Kobe were particularly well received, and resulted in invitations to present my work at two meetings of the Royal Astronomical Society. I gave a very well received invited talk entitled “Exoplanets, Exo-Earths and Habitability” at the 2011 Annual Science Meeting of the Astronomical Society of Australia. At that meeting, it was announced that UNSW had been chosen to host the 2012 meeting, and I am currently working as Secretary of the Local Organising Committee to ensure that the meeting (in July 2012) will be as successful as possible.