People

Keegan Thomson-Paressant

Background

Born and raised in Canberra, Australia, I completed a BSc at the Australian National University. I then moved to Leiden University, Netherlands, where I acquired an MSc specialised in Astronomy Research. Following this, I travelled to Paris, France, where I completed a PhD at the Paris Observatory, with a thesis dedicated to the study of magnetism in pulsating variable stars. During this time, I had the opportunity to spend a year at ESO Garching, Germany, where I worked on a different project to my PhD, namely looking for exoplanets in binary systems using differential astrometry. Alongside my research, I am very invested in teaching and outreach projects, as I believe that informing the wider public and the next generations of researchers about our day-to-day work, and the importance of it, is an essential part of our duty as scientists.

Postdoc research topic

I am an observational astronomer, working on identifying and characterising the surface magnetic fields around massive stars as part of the SYMPHONY project. Throughout this pathway my research experience has touched on a wide range of topics, from radio observations of the interstellar medium, to exoplanet detections using a variety of techniques, and now studying stellar physics using both magnetic measurements and asteroseismology. I hope to combine these results with information acquired from pulsation analysis determed via space telescope photometry, in order to perform magneto-asteroseismic studies of a wide range of stars.