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Lisa Kelsey

BSc (Surrey), MSc (UCL), PhD (Southampton)

University roles

Leverhulme and Isaac Newton Trust Early Career Fellow at the Institute of Astronomy and Kavli Institute for Cosmology

Biography

Dr Lisa Kelsey studied for a BSc in Physics at the University of Surrey, before completing a MSc in Astrophysics at University College London. She then moved to the University of Southampton for her PhD, studying the effect of host galaxy environments on type Ia supernovae in the Dark Energy Survey. Following her PhD, she joined the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth as a postdoctoral research fellow. In 2024, Dr Kelsey was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship at the Institute of Astronomy and Kavli Institute for Cosmology, Cambridge, jointly funded by the Isaac Newton Trust.
 

Research Interests

Dr Kelsey’s research sits at the interface of supernova astrophysics and cosmology, with a particular focus on reducing systematic uncertainties in type Ia supernova standardisation. She investigates how supernova luminosities are impacted by the properties of their host galaxy environments at both galactic and sub-galactic (“local”) scales, with the aim of improving the use of type Ia supernovae as standardisable candles. She is currently focusing on detailed studies of the environments of “supernova siblings” occurring in the same host galaxy, using data from her Hubble Space Telescope program.
 
Dr Kelsey is passionate about public engagement and scientific outreach, co-leading the citizen science project Kilonova Seekers for the Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) collaboration, which provides an opportunity for members of the public to help in the discovery of astrophysical transients. She is co-PI of the Kilonova Seekers – LCO: STAR program, a Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) Global Sky Partner, and co-lead of the public engagement working group for the 4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST) collaboration.

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