ABOUT ME
Born and raised in England, I travelled to Hawai'i in 2015 to start an internship at the Institute for Astronomy in Hilo, on the Big Island. I fell in love with my Big Island, and with my soon-to-be husband Karl, and decided to stay, finishing my undergraduate degree remotely with the Open University in the UK.
I graduated my B.Sc with first-class honors and started a masters' degree in 2019 at the University of Hawai'i (at Manoa), although once again, I worked remotely from Hilo.
Following my masters' I started working on my PhD at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Once again, I continued to live in Hawai'i.
I am currently a doctoral candidate at Vanderbilt University, as well as the project manager for the Frist Center of Autism and Innovation, housed within the School of Engineering at Vanderbilt University.
I live in Volcano, on the Big Island of Hawai'i with my husband (Karl), my dogs (Nordle, Rusty, and Strider) and my cats (Scampi and Bobo).
Methods and Expertise
Research Interests
Galactic Archaeology
Studying the formation and evolution of our Milky Way Galaxy using evolved stars as a fossil record.
Multiplicity and Binarity
Discovering both bound and unbound binary multiple systems, particularly for the consideration of data contamination.
Stellar Abundances
Using stellar abundance measurements to investigate the formation and evolution of stars in the Milky Way.
Photometry
Determining photometric measurements from data for multiple big-glass telescopes.
Data Reduction
Automated data reduction scripted for multiple telescopes to deduce data parameters: Keck, UKIRT, CFHT etc.
Stellar Contamination Identification
Identifying contamination from stellar companions using specific data combinations, i.e. Kepler TPF files and Gaia DR3.