Research Interests
My work involves investigating the stellar winds, outflows and circumstellar environments of massive stars. This includes O and B stars that are still in their main phase of stellar evolution, as well as evolved massive stars, known as red supergiants (RSGs) and yellow hypergiants (YHGs). Massive stars have stellar winds with significant mass-loss rates of up to 10^-3 solar masses per year, which can have a crucial impact on the stellar evolution and final stellar endpoints of the star. However, more observational constraints are needed to better understand these stars, and to help improve current stellar evolutionary models.
One of my current research projects is focused on looking at the extended envelopes of YHGs and RSGs in our galaxies, with the use of data from multiple telescopes, including the Onsala Space Observatory 20m dish, the IRAM 30m dish, Herschel Space Observatory and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. Additionally, I am also currently investigating the thermal radio continuum emission from the stellar winds of O and B stars with the use of data collected from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), in order to determine constraints on the mass-loss and clumping properties of these stars. My PhD work was carried out in 2016 - 2020 at University College London, under the supervisor Raman Prinja, with my collaborators Danielle Fenech and Simon Clark, resulting in the thesis "A Radio Census of the Massive Stellar Cluster Westerlund 1." This work focused on investigating the massive stellar population of the massive open cluster Westerlund 1, using data from radio continuum interferometric observations of Westerlund 1 from ATCA and ALMA to consider the properties of the stars within this cluster and their extended circumstellar environments, as well as the interactions at play between the massive evolved stars present and the outflows from general cluster population. A summary of my academic career can be seen in my CV on my about me page. |