Sean O'Byrne obtained undergraduate physics and education degrees from the University of New England, and Masters and PhD degrees in physics at the Australian National University.  His PhD research was on temperature and velocity distributions in hypersosic wake flows. From 2002 to 2004 he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at NASA Langley Research Center, studying supersonic combustion processes.   From 2004 to 2006 he was awarded a Vice Chancellor's fellowship at the University of New South Wales.  He joined the faculty of UNSW Canberra in 2006 and undertook research in laser-based diagnostics until 2023, when he joined ANU as Professor of Aerospace Engineering. He is a senior member of the Optica and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Aerospace professional societies, an editor for the Shock Waves and Frontiers in Physics journals and is on the International Advisory Committee for the International Symposium on Rarefied Gas Dynamics.  Dr O'Byrne has supervised 18 PhD students (10 as primary supervisor) and 1 ME Student. 

B Sc (Hons), Dip. Ed. UNE, M.Sc, PhD ANU

My research interests include measurements of physical properties in chemically reacting and high-speed flows and plasmas.  Mostly I work in non-intrusive laser spectroscopic methods, but I also have an interest in instrumentation systems more generally.

The techniques I develop are deployed to improve understanding of high-speed and nonequilibrium thermodynamic processes in a range of applications, including

• Hypersonic flows and shock waves
• Plasmas
• Rarefied flows, including both low-density space applications and microscale flows and
• Combustion flows

The diagnostic techniques that I have developed include measurements of species concentrations, temperatures, densities and velocities.  They have included both fundamental laboratory-based studies of phenomena like diffusive mixing, and measurements on board high-speed aircraft.