Ava Morrissey (she/her)

Ava Morrissey (she/her)

PhD Student

Location: Giabal and Jarowair Country, Toowoomba Campus
Email

Hi! I am a PhD student at UniSQ working on characterising exoplanet atmospheres using ground and space-based telescope data. Currently, I am researching how mass-loss mechanisms shape the atmospheres of exoplanets around young stars within their first 100 million years post-formation. 

I received my Bachelors degree in Physics and Astrophysics from Trinity College Dublin in 2022. For my undergraduate dissertation, I used high-resolution spectroscopic data to analyse the rich atmospheres of ultra-hot Jupiters, and any chemical gradients that occur. In the past, I have interned at the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town where I worked on a project merging and matching source catalogues from MeerKAT observations of the Small Magellanic Cloud in order to look for previously undetected sources of diffuse radio emission. 

I am currently researching how the atmospheres of exoplanets around young, active stars develop and change within the first 100 Myr post-formation. I plan to use data from HST’s STIS and VLT’s CRIRES+ to probe the escaping H/He atmosphere of a young sub-Neptune in order to see how its primordial envelope has evolved over time.

  • The Evolution of Young Exoplanet Atmospheres
  • Young Active Stars
  • Ultra-Hot Jupiters
  • Sub-Neptunes

Ms Morrissey’s publications can be viewed here