I am an astrophysics researcher at the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute, University of Lancashire, and part of the Galaxy Dynamics research group led by Prof. Victor P. Debattista. My research combines galaxy simulations with observations to study the formation and evolution of barred galaxies and the Milky Way. In particular, I investigate the kinematics, chemistry, and ages of stellar populations in box/peanut (X-shaped) bulges, with recent work spanning bulge velocity ellipsoids, RR Lyrae and Mira variable stars, and the structure of the Milky Way’s star-forming disc.
My PhD was funded by the Moses Holden Studentship, dedicated to the Lancashire astronomer and educator. I am currently a Junior Associate of the LSST:UK Consortium as part of the Galaxies; Stars, Milky Way and Local Volume Science Collaboration and a member of the N-Body Shop. Part of my current research, Gough-Kelly et al. (2022), bridges these two memberships by making predictions for kinematic differences between populations within the Milky Way bulge.
PhD in Galaxy Dynamics
2019-01-01
Jeremiah Horrocks Institute, UCLan
MSc by Research in Astrophysics
2018-01-01
2019-12-31
Jeremiah Horrocks Institute, UCLan
BSc (Hons) Astrophysics
2015-01-01
2018-12-31
University of Central Lancashire
Galaxy dynamics helps us understand how galaxies form and evolve over time. My research focuses on the evolution of the central structures of disc galaxies, such as bars, nuclear discs, and bulges in galaxies similar to the Milky Way.
We are particularly interested in the slow internal processes that dominate large-scale changes over the billions of years following the initial turbulent formation period.
We present a pilot study using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory early alerts to verify RR Lyrae candidates in the Pan-STARRS1, the Dark Energy Survey, and the Next-Generation Virgo …
We leveraged reliable age and distance estimates from LAMOST-DR3 and APOGEE-DR17+AstroNN combined with Gaia data to perform a detailed analysis of the stellar age distribution in …
We study the velocity ellipsoids in an N-body$+$SPH (smooth particle hydrodynamics) simulation of a barred galaxy which forms a bar with a BP bulge. We focus on the 2D kinematics, …
RR Lyrae stars toward the Galactic bulge are used to investigate whether this old stellar population traces the Galactic bar. Although the bar is known to dominate the mass in the …
In this study, we have analyzed the spatial and transverse velocity distribution of RR Lyrae stars toward the Galactic bulge. We utilized data from OGLE-IV, Gaia, VVV, and VHS …
