About me
I am a UKRI Future Leader Fellow and Assistant Professor at the University of Warwick. Through my research, I aim to enable the future confirmation of Earth-analogues, and to better understand planetary migration and evolution by disentangling stellar and planetary signatures. In particular, I am studying granulation from a two-pronged perspective: using transiting planets to resolve stellar surfaces (and also to determine star-planet orbital alignments, thereby constraining planetary migration and evolution), as well as simulating stellar surfaces with state-of-the-art 3D simulations to gain insight into the underlying physics.
Typical exoplanet host stars exhibit many surface features, such as: spots, faculae, granulation, and oscillations. Such phenomena can induce spurious velocities, referred to as astrophysical noise as they may mask (or mimic) the Doppler wobble of a planetary companion. For reference, the Doppler wobble of the Earth around our Sun is a mere 0.9 m/s, whereas astrophysical noise may range from ~0.1 - 100 m/s. Furthermore, as instrumentation continues to advance, it is astrophysical noise that will set the fundamental limit on the confirmation and characterisation of low-mass exoplanets.
I was awarded my PhD from Queen's University Belfast in July 2014, and maintain a Visiting Research Fellowship there. My PhD, A Pathway to Earth-like Worlds: Overcoming Astrophysical Noise, focused on primarily on mitigating the impact of granulation noise on low-mass exoplanet confirmation through use of 3D magnetohydrodynamical simulations of the solar surface. During this time I also identified variable gravitational redshift as a potential source of astrophysical noise on the cm/s level. This project also involved a collaboration with Vanderbilt University, where I used a combination of data from the Kepler and GALEX satellites alongside a few empirical relationships to establish a link between photometric and spectroscopic noise for magnetically quiet stars. Following my PhD I took up a Leverhulme Trust Fellowship at QUB and later a CHEOPS Research Fellowship hosted at the University of Geneva.
Prior to this, I completed my Bachelors of Science in Physics with an Emphasis in Astronomy and Minor in Mathematics at Minnesota State University Moorhead. I graduated Summa Cum Laude and with full honors from the University Honor's program. I am a Goldwater Scholar, Academic All-American, member of the Sigma Xi Research Society, Sigma Pi Sigma the Physics Honor Society, the American Astronomical Society, and the Royal Astronomical Society.
Typical exoplanet host stars exhibit many surface features, such as: spots, faculae, granulation, and oscillations. Such phenomena can induce spurious velocities, referred to as astrophysical noise as they may mask (or mimic) the Doppler wobble of a planetary companion. For reference, the Doppler wobble of the Earth around our Sun is a mere 0.9 m/s, whereas astrophysical noise may range from ~0.1 - 100 m/s. Furthermore, as instrumentation continues to advance, it is astrophysical noise that will set the fundamental limit on the confirmation and characterisation of low-mass exoplanets.
I was awarded my PhD from Queen's University Belfast in July 2014, and maintain a Visiting Research Fellowship there. My PhD, A Pathway to Earth-like Worlds: Overcoming Astrophysical Noise, focused on primarily on mitigating the impact of granulation noise on low-mass exoplanet confirmation through use of 3D magnetohydrodynamical simulations of the solar surface. During this time I also identified variable gravitational redshift as a potential source of astrophysical noise on the cm/s level. This project also involved a collaboration with Vanderbilt University, where I used a combination of data from the Kepler and GALEX satellites alongside a few empirical relationships to establish a link between photometric and spectroscopic noise for magnetically quiet stars. Following my PhD I took up a Leverhulme Trust Fellowship at QUB and later a CHEOPS Research Fellowship hosted at the University of Geneva.
Prior to this, I completed my Bachelors of Science in Physics with an Emphasis in Astronomy and Minor in Mathematics at Minnesota State University Moorhead. I graduated Summa Cum Laude and with full honors from the University Honor's program. I am a Goldwater Scholar, Academic All-American, member of the Sigma Xi Research Society, Sigma Pi Sigma the Physics Honor Society, the American Astronomical Society, and the Royal Astronomical Society.