I am an Astronomer now working at the School of Physics, University of New South Wales. My passion lies in sharing knowledge and mentoring and I enjoy lecturing and public speaking.
My research interests are focussed on trying to understand how our Milky Way and more massive galaxies form, evolve, and die. I have an expertise in utilising integral field and near-infrared spectroscopic data to determine galaxies' stellar kinematic properties.
I am the PI of GECKOS , a VLT/MUSE large survey of 35 edge on galaxies with similar mass as the Milky Way. Within the SAMI and Hector Galaxy Survey teams I am leading the stellar kinematics working groups. I also work on intermediate and high-redshift galaxies (z=1-2) using MUSE, X-Shooter, and VIMOS-VLT and I am a member of the MAGPI and LEGA-C surveys. I recently organised the conference Linking the Galactic and Extragalactic .
I obtained my PhD in 2014 at Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , titled Dawn of the Red and Dead: Stellar Kinematics of Massive Quiescent Galaxies out to z=2. From 2015-2020 I worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher with Joss Bland-Hawthorn at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy. In 2020 I was awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellowship. In 2024 I joined the School of Physics at the University of New South Wales as a Lecturer in Astrophysics.