Biography

I am an astrophysicist working on progenitors of thermonuclear supernovae and other transient phenomena related to interacting stars.

I work in binary star evolution theory and make predictions for the types of binary star systems that can blow up as Type Ia supernovae, how often they occur, and where/when they would explode. I am a junior associate member of the Vera Rubin Observatory project (LSST), which will discover >1000s of new transients per night once in full operation. I am also interested in star systems that can be detected with gravitational waves, in particular with space-based observatories like LISA.

In 2017 I was awarded a Future Fellowship by the Australian Research Council in the School of Science at the University of New South Wales in Canberra (UNSW Canberra), Australia. At UNSW Canberra I’m working on connecting different types of thermonuclear explosions to their progenitor stars (e.g. age of star when it exploded, how massive it was, what its companion star looked like). Many interacting binary stars that do not make supernovae will produce other interesting transients such as R Coronae Borealis stars, AM CVn binaries, novae, or they may instead collapse to form a neutron star (accretion-induced collapse). I am interested in all of these objects, too, and the various elements they synthesise and release back into the interstellar medium. 

I am an LGBTQIA+ ally 🏳️‍🌈🏳️⚧

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Ashley identifies as culturally and linguistically diverse.