Darren Croton is a Professor of Astrophysics at Swinburne’s Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing. His research concerns understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies in the local and high redshift universe, using both simulations and large observational data sets. 

Professor Croton is especially interested in the development of models of galaxy formation embedded in large cosmological simulations, supermassive black holes and quasars, galaxy environment, galaxy clustering, and large-scale voids. His most recent project is to build the ‘Theoretical Astrophysical Observatory’ (TAO; tao.asvo.org.au)¬ – an online eResearch laboratory that allows astronomers to construct their own virtual universes from a range of different simulation and galaxy formation model data, filter the output through a virtual telescope, and download the results for their own scientific use.

Professor Croton is a member of a number of large international galaxy and cosmology survey teams, working with data from the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, Keck Telescopes, and the Anglo-Australian Telescope.He is a lead member of the Uchuu cosmological simulation team, and built the galaxy formation models for the public release of the highly influential Millennium Run dark matter simulation, amongst others.