Academic
Bill's research interests are focused on the study of the Sun and other Sun-like stars, with a particular interest in using asteroseismology to characterize newly discovered exoplanet systems with Sun-like hosts. He has leadership positions in Kepler/K2, TESS and PLATO, and is the principal-investigator on the BiSON project.
Guy is a lecturer at the University of Birmingham and he is interested in researching the nature of the Sun, stars that are a little bit like the Sun, and stars that are much more evolved than the Sun. He is interested in the evolution of stars and how the rotation, magnetism, and mass loss of stars evolves with time. Guy uses observations of the oscillations of the Sun and the stars to learn about stellar evolution and to characterise the fundamental properties of stars. The use of oscillations can be particularly valuable when studying stars that host extrasolar planets. Guy is also involved with the daily operations of the BiSON project.
Yvonne has previously been the head of the group and is now part-time and fully engaged with research. There are two primary strands to her research. The first is in helioseismology - the study of the interior of the Sun through the sound waves that propagate there. Associated with this is a strong interest in the instrumentation that enables the observations i.e., BiSON. The second strand is measurement of asteroseismic parameters and their use in the determination of the internal structure of red giants stars as key tracers of the structure of the galaxy. Yvonne is also a Fellow of the Royal Society.
In January 2020 Yvonne received the RAS Gold Medal. This is the highest award in the Society's gift, awarded for her achievements in helioseismology.
After spending time studying and doing research in Gent (BE), Leiden (NL), Porto (PT), St Andrews (UK), and Cambridge (UK), Annelies is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Birmingham. Annelies is an observational astronomer playing with stars and exoplanets. She works on the detection and characterisation of (small) exoplanets, currently mostly using the HARPS-N spectrograph and preparing to use the HARPS3 spectrograph. She studies the link between planetary and stellar parameters, focusing mainly on chemical composition. Annelies also studies the Sun-as-a-star to understand the processes behind stellar variability and their effect on radial velocity.
As an Assistant Professor at the University of Birmingham, Anjali's research aims to uncover the diversity of planetary physics among the exoplanet population. She studies the atmospheres and surfaces of a wide range of exoplanets, from molten lava worlds to mini-Neptunes and gas giants. Anjali's research lies at the interface between theoretical models and telescope observations, using both forward and inverse modelling methods to study the complex interplay between diverse physical and chemical processes. She places empirical constraints on these processes by interpreting atmospheric observations, including from the James Webb Space Telescope. View Dr Piette's website.
A regular visitor to observatories in the Atacama desert, Amaury is the discoverer of over one hundred exoplanets. His observations focus on planetary systems that are different compared to our own, either by the type of planets that compose those systems, by their architectures, or because of the type of star(s) they orbit. As part of the SPECULOOS collaboration, he now searches for planets the same size and the same temperature as the Earth and aims to find out if life emerged elsewhere in the Universe. The first such examples were found in the TRAPPIST-1 system.
In January 2020 Amaury received the Fowler award from the Royal Astronomical Society, and was named a finalist in the Blavatnik awards. Both recognise the important work done by young researchers across all of the physical sciences and engineering.
Postdoctoral researchers
Dr Georgina Dransfield
Georgina is predominantly interested in exoplanets and how we can group them together. Classification of objects like stars, planets and moons allow us to make predictions about how they were formed and what they are made of. Georgina is looking at where exoplanets fit in with populations of well-studied objects in order to learn more about the atmospheres of exoplanets. This is particularly interesting, as better techniques to determine whether or not a planet has, for example, water in its atmosphere will allow us to spot potential candidates for sustaining life.
Dr Jenni French
Jenni’s research aims to find and characterise new circumbinary planets, where a planet orbits both stars in a binary system such as Magrathea. Using photometry from TESS and PLATO (when it launches) she will search for transit signals within eclipsing binary lightcurves. Her research focuses on improving current detection methods so they are sensitive to small, rocky circumbinary planets, which are yet to be detected. This population would yield important comparisons with planets around single stars to quantify any formation-based differences. Her PhD project was focused on rare white dwarf—brown dwarf binary systems, including highly irradiated systems that can be used as proxies to investigate hot Jupiter atmospheres. Outside of research, Jenni enjoys reading, video games, playing music, and rock climbing.
Dr Emily Hatt
Emily previously worked in the group as an undergraduate investigating asteroseismic modelling with individual mode frequencies. Continuing in asteroseismology, she has moved her focus to data analysis, where she is currently working on automating methods of detecting stellar oscillations from spectra. She will use these to determine the current asteroseismic yield of the TESS mission, which she will compare to the initial predictions made. This is important to either reinforce or review the methods used to predict detectability for future missions. It will also lead into the second line of questioning, the impact of magnetic activity on stellar oscillations, which was purposefully neglected from the initial predictions. Exploiting the high quality asteroseismic data from the Kepler and TESS missions, she will use the interaction of the oscillations and activity to study the near surface magnetic flux in a host of F, G and K-type stars. Here she hopes to constrain the behaviour of such as a function of various stellar properties.
Dr Rachel Howe
Rachel's main interests are the changes in the properties of solar oscillation modes in response to solar activity and the changes in the Sun's interior rotation over the solar cycle - in particular the pattern of migrating faster and slower flows known as the torsional oscillation. She is also interested in helioseismology using different observables such as the UV observations from SDO/AIA.
Dr Ben Lakeland
Ben is interested in exoplanet detection and in particular characterising and mitigating the impact of stellar variability on exoplanet searches. To this end, he uses “Sun-as-a-star” observations (i.e., studying the Sun as if it were a distant exoplanet host) to leverage information about stellar variability. His recent work includes characterising the radial-velocity variability of the magnetically inactive solar surface. At present, he is designing and building a polarising solar telescope to be used with the upcoming HARPS3 spectrograph on La Palma. Find more about Ben and his recent work.
Dr Martin Nielsen
Martin works on preparations for the ESA PLATO Mission, in particular the design, development and testing of "peak bagging" algorithms for extracting estimates of individual oscillation frequencies from PLATO data. This work involves use of machine-learning algorithms and hierarchical Bayesian models. Martin also works on analysing data from NASA's TESS spacecraft, and studying the rotation of stars similar to the Sun.
Dr Federica Rescigno
Federica specialised in planet detection and stellar activity mitigation in the extreme precision radial velocity regime, as well as the application of Bayesian statistics and Gaussian processes in the field for which she has developed the pipeline MAGPy-RV (readthedocs website).She focuses on "Sun as an exoplanet-hosting distant star" studies, and uses solar radial velocity observational data to develop new mitigation techniques. As part of the Solar & Stellar Physics group, Federica will be analysing BiSON data. Please see her website for further information.
Dr Victor See
Victor has spent his career researching how the magnetism, activity, winds and rotation rates of low-mass stars evolve over billion year time-scales. Primarily, this has been via data driven numerical models. In particular, much of his research has involved analysing stellar magnetograms, constructed from the so-called Zeeman Doppler imaging technique, and using them to better estimate the rates at which stars lose angular momentum through their magnetised winds. Away from science, Victor enjoys reading fantasy fiction novels, board gaming, playing music and hiking.
Dr Amalie Stokholm
Amalie Stokholm's field of research is asteroseismology - the study of subtle vibrations in stars. and specifically in comparing the vibration frequencies of simulated stars with observations. The observations of the rhythmic variations in the star's brightness enable the construction of detailed models of stars and provide insights that deepens our understanding of stellar physics and improve age estimates of stars. Amalie is extending her studies to not just individual stars but populations of stars in the Galaxy and is using sophisticated state-of-the-art methods such as Hierarchical Bayesian Analysis to infer vital clues about the Milky Way's history and the conditions prevailing in the Universe's infancy.Amalie's work in Birmingham also includes planning the analysis pipeline that will be used in ESA's upcoming PLATO mission.
Dr Emma Willett
Emma Started working in the group during her Master’s project, during which she investigated the helium abundance in red clump stars. She is now working on asterochronometry – a project to measure the ages of stars more precisely and accurately using data from asteroseismology and other sources. These ages are important for many fields within astrophysics. For example, we can use them for galactic archaeology to understand the formation and evolution of the Milky Way and to study systems of planets around other stars.
Technical Staff
Steven leads the operation and development of the international Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network (BiSON), a global network of automated robotic solar telescopes funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council. His research interests are instrumentation and electronics, and high-resolution optical spectroscopy techniques.
Eleanor Murray
Eleanor is part of the technical team at the Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network (BiSON), where she focuses on modernizing and enhancing the network’s hardware infrastructure. Her work involves finding solutions to replace decades-old technology, much of which still relies on human observers. By integrating microcontroller systems, she is working towards full automation across all BiSON sites, including the historic 60-foot solar tower at Mount Wilson Observatory, where she leads the automation efforts. Outside of work, Eleanor enjoys ballet dancing, playing the piano, and going on walks to admire squirrels.
PhD Students
Aleyna Adamson
Aleyna joined the group as a first year PhD student in September 2024. Her research is focused on searching for exoplanets orbiting binary stars known as circumbinary planets. Unfortunately, only a handful of circumbinary planets have been discovered as they are difficult to find, and current searches have been focused around single-lined binaries. Therefore, Aleyna is focused on double-lined binaries where the spectral lines from both stars are visible. She aims to detect these circumbinary planets by analysing radial velocity measurements from the binary to model their orbits and extract an exoplanet signal.
Outside of research she enjoys knitting and looking after her houseplant jungle.
Tom's research interests focus on the study of planets in dynamically complex environments, in particular exoplanets orbiting binary stars. These planets imagined decades ago in science-fiction (e.g. Tatooine) are one of the most exotic types of planet that show how varied our galaxy can be. They are poorly understood, but can lead to a deeper understanding of planet formation. Tom detects such planets with a variety of techniques using data from telescopes in space, in the desert, and in the mountains. He is a member of the BEBOP consortium that searches for planets orbiting binaries, and the SPECULOOS collaboration that detects planets around ultra-cool stars. More details can be found on his website.
Anand Bhongade
Anand is interested in studying exoplanets, their atmospheres and their habitability. For his first Master’s he focused on studying the properties of planets transiting rotationally active stars. For his second Master’s he used a 3D General Circulation Model (GCM) to simulate a tidally locked TRAPPIST-1e with pre-industrial Earth-like atmospheric composition, landmass distribution and orography. This was done to study the influence of Earth-like land structure on the atmospheric circulation and chemistry. Anand’s PhD is focused on studying the atmospheres of a wide range of exoplanets using different modelling techniques. He aims to link atmospheric observables with the surface/interior properties of these exoplanets. Outside of research, he enjoys watching anime, listening to Hindi and Marathi music, and playing various musical instruments such as the guitar, tabla, harmonium and electronic keyboard.
Yasmin Davis
Yasmin’s research is focussed on establishing well defined parameters for M dwarf stars by applying methods used for exoplanet detection to binary star systems. M dwarf stars could be excellent candidates for finding planets within the habitable zone, due to their lower temperatures compared to solar type stars. This results in a habitable zone that is closer to the star, and therefore a transiting planet would produce a deeper signal in a light curve.
By having a better understanding of low-mass stars we hope to be able to detect exoplanets around them and accurately characterise them. This is achieved using radial velocity data, from instruments such as the HARPS spectrograph in Chile, alongside transit photometry.
Alix Violet Freckelton
Alix started work in the group as an undergraduate, developing a pipeline to determine stellar parameters from their spectra for her Masters’ project. She now uses spectra from HARPS, SOPHIE, HERMES, and FIES to study both stellar parameters and radial velocities for bright dwarf stars. Alix also likes to work with TESS light curves - particularly those of eclipsing binaries. Timing variations of the eclipses in such a system can indicate the presence of a third body - be this a third star, or even better, an orbiting planet. All this work is assisted by her cat Bruce, who loves sitting on laptops.
Maddy Scott
Maddy's research focusses on searching for planets around ultra-cool M-dwarf stars, and thus determining their exoplanet occurrence rates. She is part of the SPECULOOS project, and uses photometric data obtained from their ground-based telescopes in Chile to search for additional planets in systems where the space-based telescope TESS has identified at least one planet. Multiplicity in planetary systems is thought to be the norm, so discovering the frequency of single- or multi-planet systems can help to inform planet formation theories, and allow comparisons to our own Solar System.Outside of research, Maddy's hobbies include netball and crochet, as well as recently learning to play chess with others in the group.
Owen Scutt
Owen’s Master’s research focussed on characterising dark matter substructure in gravitational lens galaxies using convolutional neural networks. For his PhD project, Owen is currently working with the University’s asteroseismology group, using machine learning for rapid inference of stellar model parameters from grids of stellar models. In the future, he aims to work with the exoplanets group to apply this machine learning interpolation method to grids of exoplanet atmospheres. He hopes this will create finer grids of exoplanet atmosphere models which take into account the 3D shape of exoplanets, aiding in the creation of continuous exoplanet spectra from observational data, potentially from the James Webb Space Telescope. Outside of his research, Owen regularly visits the peak district for walks and runs (and to visit his three cats!).
Daisy Turner
Daisy is interested in investigating the relation between planetary and stellar composition, with her research primarily focusing on systems with Earth-sized planets orbiting iron-poor host stars. She uses high-resolution spectra from instruments such as HARPS-N to obtain stellar abundances and sometimes visits La Palma to take the measurements herself! As stars and planets are formed in the same environment, a connection should exist between the compositions of planets and their host stars. Exploring this relationship offers insights into the intricate history of the formation and evolution of these systems.Outside of work, Daisy enjoys crocheting and playing video games.
MRes Students
George Hookway
The field that George's Master’s research project is focused on is asteroseismology. The project focuses on performing asteroseismic analysis on the solar-like oscillations of stars, ranging from main sequence stars to red giants. The aim is to use “peak-bagging” algorithms to identify the individual oscillation frequencies within the power spectra of these stars. His research may then move on to performing more in-depth analysis and modelling of particular stars of interest, such as asteroseismic binaries.
Outside of his work, George enjoys walking, climbing, reading and gaming, along with many other hobbies.
Artist in Collaboration
Caroline Devine
Administrative Staff
Louise Barden
Louise is the secretarial support for the Solar & Stellar Physics research group. She helps the team organise conferences, meetings as well as taking on all the daily office tasks to enable the team to concentrate on their research activities, such as booking travel etc. In addition, Louise often instigates whole group social events such as quizzes and group meals and often brings yummy baked items into the office (for eating at coffee break time!).
Outside work, Louise lives out in the Worcestershire sticks with her hubby, two children grown up (but, yet to leave home). A new addition to the family is Leo, a very cute nearly 5-month old rescued Cavalier King Charles Spaniel x Poodle puppy, who was adopted from the Blue Cross. Leo is currently teething, and is also (in Louise’s words) “a menace to society!” Louise also likes gardening, raising house plants, baking and, also enjoys looking at the sky and stars at night – as she said in her interview for the role “there are no streetlights where I live!”