21 years of Astronomy at Warwick: celebrating the legacy of Prof. Tom Marsh

Abstract

Between the 4th and 6th of September 2024, the Astronomy & Astrophysics group at the University of Warwick held a meeting to celebrate 21 years of astronomy at Warwick and the scientific legacy of the late Prof. Tom Marsh, the group founder. More than a hundred people attended the meeting, with about half of the attendees being external delegates and coming from as far afield as the USA and South Africa. Tom Marsh moved to the University of Warwick from Southampton in 2003, after the Department of Physics decided to expand the scope of its research. From its humble beginnings with only two staff members, Tom himself and Boris G\"ansicke, one postdoc and a couple of PhD students, the group has now grown to more than 95 members, including 25 staff. Tom pioneered the development of Doppler tomography, led key discoveries in the field of double-degenerate binary systems and made extensive contributions to instrumentation, primarily to developing the high-speed imaging photometers ULTRACAM, ULTRASPEC and HiPERCAM. This article provides a summary of Tom's legacy and Warwick's history as presented in the 21 years of Astronomy at Warwick meeting.