Rate My Professor Martin Towner

Dr. Martin Towner serves as a Research Fellow in the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences within the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, focusing on meteoritics and extraterrestrial geology. He earned his BSc (Hons) in Physics and PhD in Solid State Physics from the University of Bristol, completing the doctorate in 1995. Towner joined Curtin University in 2012 as a Senior Research Fellow and has since become a key figure in planetary science research, particularly as Field Operations Chief for the Desert Fireball Network (DFN), a continent-scale camera array designed to observe, triangulate, and recover meteorites. His leadership has enabled the successful recovery of several observed meteorite falls, including the Murrili meteorite from Kati Thanda (Lake Eyre) in 2015, the Halloween meteorite from a Western Australian farm in 2016, Puli Ilkaringuru in recent years, and two meteorites in 2020 from November 2019 and earlier events. These recoveries have provided critical samples for studying Solar System origins, meteoroid populations, and dynamical properties.

Towner's scholarly contributions include over 80 publications, with more than 1,200 citations on ResearchGate and extensive work documented under his ORCID 0000-0002-8240-4150. Notable publications encompass 'Fireball streak detection with minimal CPU processing requirements for the Desert Fireball Network data processing pipeline' (2020), 'Machine learning for semi-automated meteorite recovery' (2020), 'Successful Recovery of an Observed Meteorite Fall Using the Desert Fireball Network and Drone Imagery' (2022), 'A novel approach to fireball modeling: The observable and the unobservable' (2015), and 'Dynamical and physical properties of 400 CAMS-detected meteor showers' (2020). He has co-authored on advancements in fireball detection algorithms, dark flight modeling, and machine learning applications for meteorite searches. Towner participates in Australian Research Council grants, such as DP170102972, and as part of the DFN team, received Curtin University's Research Team of the Year award. His work enhances meteoritics through innovative field operations and data processing within the Space Science and Technology Centre at Curtin.