Dr. BA

My current expertise lies in Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars and Mira Variables. These highly-evolved low-to-intermediate mass stars are quite cool (for stars at least), which allows for prolific dust and molecule production. Pulsations loft this new material into the surrounding stellar atmosphere. These conditions make these stars ideal laboratories for studying molecules and dust (or both!) and the physical processes in which stars enrich their environments at the end of their lives. My doctoral work focused on

combining mid-infrared spectroscopic observations taken with the Spitzer Space Telescope with interferometric measurements which provided unprecedented access to the the atmospheres of these stars.

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Now as a postdoc I am developing a new set of skills centered on near-infrared and optical interferometry. Specifically, I am using interferometric data spanning 10 years for over 100 Mira variables to build a "Reference Data Set". This data set will eventually contain the  everything we know about each of these stars, including: fundamental stellar properties derived from the interferometric measurements such as radial size, effective temperature, bolometric flux etc., multi-wavelength observations from Spitzer, GALEX, ISO, the VLA etc., and parallax measurements from Gaia. The power of interferometry is that we can directly determine fundamental properties of the star that normally require multi-faceted assumptions to include in stellar models. By using interferometry we minimize the amount of assumptions we need to make about the star, which can lead to remarkable insights.