Previous positions:

University of Szeged (Hungary), research fellow, 1999 September - 2000 September
University of Szeged (Hungary), assistant lecturer, 2000 September - 2001 December
University of Szeged (Hungary), assistant professor, 2002 January - 2002 December
University of Sydney (Australia), postdoctoral fellow, 2002 December - 2005 March
University of Sydney (Australia), University of Sydney Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2005 April - 2008 April
University of Sydney (Australia), RAVE Fellow, 2008 May - 2009 October
Konkoly Observatory (Hungary), Lendület Research Fellow, 2009 October - 2014 June

Professional activities:

• member of the Editorial Board of the Information Bulletin on Variable Stars (IBVS)
• visiting astronomer
  Univ. of Toronto, Canada, in 1996 (5 weeks), 1997 (5 weeks) and 1999 (1 week)
  Insituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, Granada, Spain, in 2002 (3 months)
• referee for the journals:
  Astronomy and Astrophysics (A&A), Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), Astronomical Journal (AJ), Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), Astrophysics and Space Science (ApSS), Publication of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (PASP), Publication of the Astronomical Society of Japan (PASJ), Astronomische Nachrichten (AN), New Astronomy, Journal of the AAVSO (JAAVSO)
• talks at conferences:
  1997: "Second European Meeting of the AAVSO", Sion, Switzerland
  1997: "A Half Century of Stellar Pulsation Interpretations", Los Alamos, USA
  1998: "Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars", Montpellier, France
  1999: "Atmospheres of M, C and S Giants", Vienna, Austria
  2001: "International Conference on Variable Star Research", Brno, Czech Republic
  2002: "AFOEV International Meeting on Variable Stars", Bourbon-Lancy, France
  2003: "Variable stars in the Local Group", IAU Col. 193, Christchurch, New Zealand
  2005: invited review talk at "Stellar Pulsation and Evolution", Rome, Italy
  2006: Annual Scientific Meeting of the ASA, Canberra, Australia
  2007: Annual Scientific Meeting of the ASA, Sydney, Australia
  
• member of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA), American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) and the Hungarian Astronomical Association (HAA)
• leader of the Variable Star Section of the HAA
• Editor-in-Chief of the astronomical news website hirek.csillagaszat.hu
• 2007-2010: member of the Australian Time Assignment Committee (ATAC) and the Anglo-Australian Time Assignment Committee (AATAC)
  

Fellowships, scientific grants

• 2000-2002: Bolyai János Postdoctoral Scholarship, Hungarian Academy of Science
• 2001-2003: "Spectrophotometric studies of small bodies in the Solar System, Hungarian Ministry of Education (30,000 USD)
• 2002: Hungarian Eötvös Fellowship (7,000 USD)
• 2003-2006: "Stellar evolutionary studies in open and globular clusters with spectrophotometric methods", Hungarian Research Council (20,000 USD) - cancelled in 2004
• 2002 December - 2005 March: Postdoctoral Fellow in Stellar Oscillations, University of Sydney
• 2005 April - 2008 April: University of Sydney Postdoctoral Research Fellow
• 2009 October - 2014 June: Lendület Research Fellow, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
  

Student supervison:

• M.Sc. supervisor (1998-2004, University of Szeged): 8 students
• PhD co-supervisor (2002-2005, University of Szeged): 3 students
• Honours supervisor (2003-2007, University of Sydney): 3 students
• PhD co-supervisor (2004-2008, University of Sydney): 2 students
  
• TSP & 3rd-year project supervisor (2004-2007, University of Sydney): 7 students
  

Research expertise and major contributions to the field:

• The physics of stellar pulsations. I have shown that  multiple periodicity in variable red giant stars is a common behaviour, and can be explained by the presence of multimode pulsations. I demonstrated the reliability of decades-long visual  data opening up a new avenue for research into the long-term behaviour of pulsating red giants, and I have also pioneered the use of time-frequency methods (e.g., wavelet analysis) in the study of their complex  pulsational behaviour. I have identified the first red giant star with chaotic pulsations, which marked a breakthrough in  understanding time-dependent phenomena in the brightness fluctuations of such stars.  Most recently, I have discovered about 10,000 low-amplitude and short-period red giant variables in  the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, which are in a completely different evolutionary phase than the previously known long-period high-amplitude stars. This important result has opened up a whole new area for asteroseismology. I have also made significant contributions to our understanding of pulsating yellow supergiant stars (Cepheids), which have fundamental importance in calibrating astronomical distance measurements. I measured the complex velocity structure of pulsating atmospheres by tracing Doppler-shifts of different species and found serious limitations of the Baade-Wesselink method, which is used to calculate absolute magnitudes using brightness, temperature and radial velocity measurements. I have also shown that close companion stars can introduce a significant bias into the physical parameter determination. Main collaborators: T.R. Bedding, K. Szatmáry, J. Vinkó.

• Interacting binary stars. I have studied spectroscopic properties  of stellar explosions, such as novae and supernovae. My studies revealed  intriguing details on geometric properties of the ejected gas and the energy of the outbursts in three recent explosions.  I have shown in two cases that the  expanding nebula had axisymmetric structures, most likely caused by jet formation. I have found new evidence for pulsation-like instabilities in energy production during an explosion that explains the transition phase of nova outbursts. Main collaborators: B. Csák, J.R. Thomson, J. Vinkó.

• Small bodies in the Solar System. I have studied rotational properties of main belt and near-Earth asteroids by measuring and modelling photometric variability of 32 minor planets. One of them (3682 Welther) is a candidate binary asteroid consisting of two small bodies that orbit around each other. I have also studied gasand dust production activity in 11 comets and found that 3 of them must be dominated by ices of CO and CO2 in order to sustain the high rates of matter ejection at the large distances from the Sun during the observations. Main collaborators: Gy.M. Szabó, P. Székely, K. Sárneczky.

• Access to research facilities. I have been granted telescope time at a variety of ground-based optical and near-infrared observatories: the CHARA Array (5 nights in 2007),  the Anglo-Australian Observatory (47 nights in 2003-2008),  Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatory (about 120 nights in 2003-2007), Sierra Nevada Observatory, Spain (about 30 nights in 1999-2002), Calar Alto Observatory, Spain (20 nights in 2000-2001), David Dunlap Observatory, Canada (about 40 nights in 1996-1999), Konkoly Observatory, Hungary (about 100 nights in 1998-2002) and Szeged Observatory, Hungary (about 200 nights in 1995-2002). I have gained expertise in photoelectric photometry, astrometry, digital image processing and optical spectroscopy.  I have initiated collaborations with astronomers from Canada, Spain, Great Britain, USA, Austria, Israel and Poland.

Publications:

86 refereed papers in high-impact international journals: 25 as a first author and further 15 with more than 50% contribution

Cumulative impact factor: ~372.4 (mean impact factor: 4.33)

28 non-refereed/non-ISI communications and 48 conference proceedings

76 circulars (IAUC, MPEC, ATel)

115 popularizing articles (predominantly in Hungarian)

Total number of independent citations: 993 (667 in refereed journal papers, 326 in books, monographs, conference proceedings and other non-refereed publications). h-index: 18 (ADS); 16 (Thomson ISI)