Assistant Professor in Space Technology

Matthew Townson

I'm an Assistant Professor in Space Technology at Northumbria University, working on adaptive optics, atmospheric turbulence, and free-space optical communications.

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About

I’m an Assistant Professor in Space Technology at Northumbria University, working on adaptive optics, atmospheric turbulence, and free-space optical communications.

My research sits at the point where ground-based optical systems meet the atmosphere, including enabling laser communications with satellites, and tracking objects in orbit. I currently lead SkyScan, an EPSRC-funded project developing new approaches to space situational awareness using my heritage in adaptive optics and astronomical image processing.

Before Northumbria, I spent six years as a postdoctoral researcher at Durham University’s Centre for Advanced Instrumentation, contributing to projects including CANARY (an on-sky AO demonstrator) and HARMONI (a first-light instrument for the Extremely Large Telescope). My PhD, also at Durham, focused on correlation wavefront sensing and turbulence profiling for solar adaptive optics.

I’m a strong believer in open-source research software. I’m the lead developer of AOtools, a Python package for adaptive optics simulation and analysis.

Adaptive Optics
Space Domain Awareness
Free Space Optical Communications

Projects

SkyScan

Project Lead — NESCA via EPSRC, 2025–present

SkyScan is using adaptive optics and astronomical image processing techniques for space situational awareness. The project is in partnership with 3S Northumbria. We’re building new tools to improve the characterisation and tracking of objects in orbit using ground-based optical systems.

AOtools

Lead developer & maintainer — GitHub

AOtools is an open-source Python package providing useful functions for adaptive optics simulation and analysis. It includes tools for wavefront statistics, Zernike polynomials, PSF analysis, and turbulence modelling. The package has over 140 GitHub stars and is widely used in the AO community.

Contact

I’m always happy to hear from people working on adaptive optics, free-space optical communications, atmospheric turbulence, or space situational awareness - whether that’s about potential collaborations, student supervision, or just a shared interest.