Alan Duffy is a professional astronomer and science communicator. He was born in England, raised in Ireland, and is currently based in Australia. He is a Research Fellow and Associate Professor at the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne University of Technology, and he is the Lead Scientist at the Royal Institution of Australia.His research is focused on using super-computers to build and test models of the growth of galaxies within vast dark matter halos, and in particular focuses on the formation of the first galaxies in the early universe during the "Epoch of Reionisation". These models aim to improve our understanding of the nature of dark matter, and the large scale properties of the universe.