Dr Ma obtained his PhD in Astronomy in 2011 and then spent 3 years at University of British Columbia (Canada) as a CITA national postdoc fellow, and another 1-year at Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at University of Manchester, UK. His research is mainly on radio astronomy and cosmology. He also has strong interests in testing general relativity and extreme physics with various astronomical observations. He believes that the future multi-tracer observations (such as galaxy surveys, neutral hydrogen survey etc) can give us a clearer and correct understanding of the cosmic evolution. He is currently a member of SKA (Square Kilometer Array) team, Planck Low Frequency Instrument, BINGO experiment (BAO as Integrated Neutral Gas Observation) and 6dFGS (six-degree-Field Galaxy Survey).

Dr Ma’s research focuses on observational and theoretical cosmology aiming at understanding the fundamental law of the Universe and uncovering the nature of dark energy and dark matter. The detail research areas are: 
Radio Cosmology: 21-cm Intensity Mapping, Epoch of Reionization Extragalatic Astronomy: galaxy peculiar velocity field, thermal and kinetic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect, dynamics of local group, near-field cosmology The Early Universe: the cosmic microwave background radiation, observational tests of inflation