PhD Thesis for which I won the 2009 Charlene Heisler Prize.
Talks

Vital Statistics

Name: Brendon James Brewer
Email: myfirstname.mylastname@gmail.com, where myfirstname and mylastname are replaced by my actual first and last name, all in lower case.

Research Interests

- Gravitational Lensing
- Bayesian Inference
- Statistical Physics
- Asteroseismology

Publications

AAOmega Observations of 47 Tucanae: Evidence for a Past Merger?
Richard R. Lane, Brendon J. Brewer, Laszlo L. Kiss, Geraint F. Lewis, Rodrigo A. Ibata, Arnaud Siebert, Timothy R. Bedding, Peter Szekely, Gyula M. Szabo, accepted for ApJ letters. Preprint

Diffusive Nested Sampling
Brendon J. Brewer, Livia B. Partay, Gabor Csanyi, submitted. Preprint Software

Entropic Priors and Bayesian Model Selection
B. J. Brewer and M. J. Francis, presented at MaxEnt 2009. Preprint

Low-Energy Astrophysics: Stimulating the Reduction of Energy Consumption in the Next Decade
Marshall, P.J., Bennert, N., Rykoff, E.S., Shen, K.J., Steinfadt, J.D.R., Fregeau, J., Chary, R.-R., Sheth, K., Weiner, B., Henisey, K.B., Quetin, E.L., Antonucci, R., Kaplan, D., Jonsson, P., Auger, M.W., Cardamone, C., Tao, T., Holz, D.E., Bradac, M., Metcalfe, T.S., McHugh, S., Elvis, M., Brewer, B.J., Urrutia, T., Guo, F., Hovest, W., Nakajima, R., For, B.-Q., Erb, D., Paneque, D., 2009, Astro2010: The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey, Position Papers, no. 35. Preprint.

Gaussian Process Modelling of Asteroseismic Data
B. J. Brewer and D. Stello, 2009, MNRAS, 395, 2226. Preprint

Unlensing HST Observations of the Einstein Ring 1RXS J1131-1231: A Bayesian Analysis
B. J. Brewer, G. F. Lewis, 2008, MNRAS, 390, 39. Preprint

A Molecular Einstein Ring at z=4.12: Imaging the Dynamics of a Quasar Host Galaxy Through a Cosmic Lens
Dominik A. Riechers, Fabian Walter, Brendon J. Brewer, Christopher L. Carilli, Geraint F. Lewis, Frank Bertoldi and Pierre Cox, 2008, ApJ, 686, 851. Preprint

Solar-like oscillations in the metal-poor subgiant nu Indi: II. Acoustic spectrum and mode lifetime
F. Carrier, H. Kjeldsen, T. R. Bedding, B. J. Brewer, R. P. Butler, P. Eggenberger, F. Grundahl, C. McCarthy, A. Retter, C. G. Tinney, 2007, A&A, 470, 1059. Preprint

Solar-like oscillations in the G2 subgiant beta Hydri from dual-site observations
Timothy R. Bedding, Hans Kjeldsen, Torben Arentoft, Francois Bouchy, Jacob Brandbyge, Brendon J. Brewer, R. Paul Butler, Joergen Christensen-Dalsgaard, Thomas Dall, Soeren Frandsen, Christoffer Karoff, Laszlo L. Kiss, Mario J.P.F.G. Monteiro, Frank P. Pijpers, Teresa C. Teixeira, C. G. Tinney, Ivan K. Baldry, Fabien Carrier, Simon J. O'Toole, 2007, ApJ, 663, 1315. Preprint

Bayesian Inference from Observations of Solar-Like Oscillations
B. J. Brewer, T. R. Bedding, H. Kjeldsen and D. Stello, ApJ, 2007, 654, 551B. Preprint

The evolution of host mass and black hole mass in QSOs from the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey
S. Fine, S. M. Croom, L. Miller, A. Babic, D. Moore, B. Brewer, R. G. Sharp, B. J. Boyle, T. Shanks, R. J. Smith, P. J. Outram, N. S. Loaring, MNRAS, 2006, 373, 613F. Preprint

The Einstein Ring 0047-2808 Revisited: A Bayesian Inversion
B. J. Brewer and G. F. Lewis, ApJ, 2006, 651, 8. Preprint

Solar-like oscillations in the metal-poor subgiant nu Indi: constraining the mass and age using asteroseismology
T. R. Bedding, R. P. Butler, F. Carrier, F. Bouchy, B. J. Brewer, P. Eggenberger, F. Grundahl, H. Kjeldsen, C. McCarthy, T. B. Nielsen, A. Retter, C. G. Tinney, ApJ, 2006, 647, 558. Preprint

Strong Gravitational Lens Inversion: A Bayesian Approach
B. J. Brewer and G. F. Lewis, ApJ, 2006, 637, 608. Preprint

The light curve of the semiregular variable L2 Puppis: II. Evidence for solar-like excitation of the oscillations
T. R. Bedding, L. L. Kiss, H. Kjeldsen, B. J. Brewer, Z. E. Dind, S. D. Kawaler, A. A. Zijlstra, MNRAS, 2005, 361, 1375. Preprint

Probing Sub parsec Structure in the Lyman Alpha Forest with Gravitational Microlensing
B. J. Brewer and G. F. Lewis, MNRAS, 2005, 356, 703. Preprint Honours thesis (PDF, 1.97 Mb)

When Darwin met Einstein: Gravitational Lens Inversion with Genetic Algorithms
B. J. Brewer and G. F. Lewis, PASA, 2005, 22, 128. Preprint 3rd year report (DOC, 335 kb)


Unpublished

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

Bayesian Estimation and Cricket
Brendon J. Brewer, 2005. Available here

Getting Your Eye In: A Bayesian Analysis of Early Dismissals in Cricket
B. J. Brewer, was submitted to a journal but vanished into the aether after the first revision. Preprint

The Implications of the Early Formation of Life on Earth
Brendon J. Brewer, was submitted, but I withdrew it because the referee didn't like it and I'm still thinking through the issues. Preprint

Various Useful MCMC methods implemented for GNU Octave or Matlab. Includes Annealed Importance Sampling, Nested Sampling, Parallel Tempering. It should be easy to customise these for your purposes.
Code for "Getting Your Eye In" analysis of batting careers (C++)
Code for Bayesian Multiple-Sine-Wave Fitting (C++). It's asteroseismology-centric, but can be used for many other purposes, just understand the crazy units first. :)

Music

In increasing order of skill level, I enjoy singing, playing keyboard, songwriting and playing guitar. Some favourite artists are: Pat Metheny Group, Steely Dan, Elvis Costello. Here's some music related stuff I have done:

MIDI sequence of "Everything's Ruined" by Faith No More
MIDI sequence of "Just a Normal Day" by Supertramp (it was fun figuring out that sax solo...)
Guitar Chords of "The Caves of Altamira" by Steely Dan
Guitar Chords of "Never Let Me Down" by David Bowie
Guitar tab for "Closing In" by the Living End