PhD position: Prof Amanda Karakas

Monash University, Australia

Updated: about 3 hours ago

I supervise a wide range of projects in stellar astrophysics, with a focus on low and intermediate-mass stars, which have masses similar to or slightly larger than our Sun. This work is carried out within the Centre of Excellence for Astrophysics in 3D: ASTRO 3D. As a member of my group, you will have the opportunity to interact with astronomers across Australia and the world, in fields as diverse as cosmolgy, galaxy evoltion and stellar astrophysics.  Students in my group primarily perform numerical simulations of stars, in order to study broad questions related to the origin of the elements in the Universe, e.g., where did the carbon in your bodies come from? What type of star made it? Generally we study stars in their final phases of evolution, when they become ageing red giants which is when the most interesting thermonuclear reactions occur deep in their interiors; the red giant phase is also when stars are more likely to interact with a gravitionally bound companion, if they have one! Students in my group also work on theoretical studies of stars with binary companions including studying the rates of classical novae and the impact of a binary companion on a star's ability to make elements.

  • "Studying the origin of the new discovered class of weak CN stars in the Magellanic Clouds using stellar variability"
  • "How do stars merge? Studying the merger between low and intermediate-mass main-sequence stars using stellar evolution" (with Prof Ilya Mandel)
  • "The impact of new carbon burning rates on the AGB-supernovae mass boundary" (with Prof Alexander Heger)
  • "The connection between novae and Type Ia supernovae"

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For further details or alternative project arrangements, please contact: amanda.karakas@monash.edu.

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