Biography
Professor Danaher is currently Chair of Engineering Physics in the School. He joined Northumbria in 1997 as a Senior Lecturer. He became a Principal Lecturer in 2000, a Reader in 2006 and a Professor in 2008.
Seán completed his BSc (Hons) at University College Dublin (UCD) in Experimental Physics and Mathematics in 1977. The following year, also at UCD), he was awarded an MSc in 1978 in the Detection of Ultra High Energy Gamma Ray Bursts. From October 1978 till July 1981 Seán worked on his PhD research in Astroparticle Physics, both in the detection of Primordial Black holes at Sandia Labs New Mexico and the high energy gamma ray source Cygnus X-3 at Fred Whipple Observatory Arizona.
Following the award of his PhD in 1981, Seán moved to the University of Sheffield, where he worked with the WA69 CERN collaboration and was involved in building the world’s first full size working Ring Imaging Cerenkov Detector (an essential component of all high energy physics experiments today). He also managed node 42 of JANET, the precursor of the Internet in the UK. In 1985 Seán became a lecturer at Leeds Polytechnic (now Leeds Metropolitan University), then moved to Northumbria in 1997.
Talking Point
Professor Danaher is very passionate about renewable energy and has transformed his home, an early 19th century chapel into a very eco-friendly dwelling.
Since moving in to St Barnabas Chapel of Ease in 2000 – a building that was converted from a church to a dwelling for Catherine Cookson in 1973-4. The house has been transformed initially with the introduction of much better insulation and then with the addition of a solar, water system, an air source heat pump (ASHP), a ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) and a 3kW Photovoltaic electricity generating system . For more details look at
http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php/topic,5423.0.html
Research Interests
Over his 30+ year research career, Professor Danaher has worked in many different areas such as Astroparticle Physics, Control Engineering, Signal Processing, Instrumentation and Renewable Energy.
Professor Danaher’s main area of research is currently in High Energy Neutrino Astronomy and in particular the acoustic detection of neutrinos. Neutrinos are very light particles which are normally almost impossible to detect, but at very high energies they interact readily with matter creating an avalanche of charged particles deposited in a cylinder of about 10m in length and 1cm in diameter. This rapid deposit of energy caused the medium to heat nearly instantaneously causing an acoustic pulse which can be detected some km away. Suitable acoustic detectors have been deployed in water and ice.
Other areas of current interest include ultra low cost smart instrumentation networks, and Renewable Energy.
To see details of Professor Danaher's publications please visit Northumbria Research Link
Teaching Interests and Modules
A wide variety of areas in Physics, Astronomy, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering
Astronomy, Engineering Physics, Communication Principles, Electrical Principles, Electronics, Computer Communications, Environmental Physics, “C” Programming, Control, Automation Systems/PLC's, Engineering Mathematics, Signal Processing, Control, Digital Signal Processing, Neural Networks, Systems Engineering, Acoustics, Instrumentation, Embedded Systems, Energy Systems.
Professor Danaher’s current teaching is largely in the area of Instrumentation, Embedded Systems and Renewable Energy.
Who I Work With
Professor Danaher has worked with numerous groups over the past 30 years, most recently with the ACoRNE collaboration and with the University of Erlangen Bavaria.
The ACoRNE group: Acoustic Neutrino Experiment consists of five universities in the UK: UCL, Imperial College, Sheffield University and Lancaster University.
