Amanda Karakas

My primary area of research interest is in the evolution and nucleosynthesis of sun-like low and intermediate-mass stars and the origin of elements in galaxies. The story of the origin of the elements is intimately tied to the processes of stellar evolution, which describes how stars change with time as a result of nuclear fusion. One focus of my research is the intriguing mystery of the production of heavy elements in stars, that is, elements heavier than iron. While astronomers can explain the origin of most of the elements in nature, the type of the stars that produced the heavy elements is still highly uncertain, especially in the early Universe. My research has been focused on the role that low and intermediate-star stars play in this story.

Amanda completed her PhD Monash University in 2004, before spending 3 years in postdoctoral positions in Canada (McMaster University and Saint Mary's University). She moved to the Australian National University at the end of 2006 for an Australian Reserach Council funded postdoctoral fellowship and stayed at the ANU for another 6 years, first as a Stromlo Fellow and then Future Fellow. She started at Monash University as a Senior Lecturer at the beginning of 2016. She is an affiliate member of the Kavli "Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe" at the University of Tokyo, Japan and has held visiting fellowships at a number of institutes around the world including Utrecht University, the University of Chicago and the University of Texas at Austin.