Researcher

Associate Professor Sarah Martell

My Expertise

Astronomy, stars, planets, extrasolar planets, black holes, supernovae, galaxies, space

Keywords

Fields of Research (FoR)

Stellar astronomy and planetary systems, Galactic astronomy

SEO tags

Biography

I'm an observational astronomer with a particular interest in the history of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. I help to design and conduct large survey projects that determine the ages, orbits and chemical compositions for hundreds of thousands of stars. I use that information to identify stars that were captured from other galaxies, and to study how the compositions of stars change over time.


My Grants

2022-2024

A$700k,...view more

I'm an observational astronomer with a particular interest in the history of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. I help to design and conduct large survey projects that determine the ages, orbits and chemical compositions for hundreds of thousands of stars. I use that information to identify stars that were captured from other galaxies, and to study how the compositions of stars change over time.


My Grants

2022-2024

A$700k, Discovery Projects grant, co-CI, "Seeing Dark with Light: Revealing the Milky Way with Stellar Streams"

2022

A$1.75M, ARC LIEF Grant, co-CI, "MAVIS: A Revolutionary New Instrument for the European Southern Observatory"

2018-2020

A$380k, ARC Discovery Project, lead CI, "Tracing the accretion history of the Milky Way with chemical tagging"

2019

A$159k, ARC LIEF Grant, co-CI, "A dedicated telescope to study the interiors of stars from their oscillations"

2017

A$16k, UNSW Faculty of Science Research Grant, co-CI, "Model-based simulation and clustering of massive data from Galactic
archaeology"

2016

A$40k, UNSW Gold Star Award, lead CI, "Chemically distinct stars as tracers of Milky Way formation history"

A$10k, UNSW Faculty of Science Research Grant, lead CI, "Advancing Galactic Archaeology with statistical tools for group-finding in high-dimensional spaces"

A$550k, ARC LIEF Grant, co-CI, "VeloceCal: Hyper-calibrating Australia's Planet Foundry"

A$430k, ARC LIEF Grant (plus A$355k partner contributions), co-CI, "Australian Membership of the European 4MOST Consortium"

2015

A$15k, UNSW Faculty of Science Early Career Researcher Grant, sole investigator, Seed funding for development of "Chemically unusual stars in the Milky Way: tracers of Galactic history" project

A$760k, ARC LIEF Grant (plus A$899k partner contributions), co-CI, "Veloce: Australia's Next-Generation Planet Foundry"

2014-2016

A$347k, ARC DECRA Fellowship, sole investigator, "The GALAH Survey: A million-star exploration of Galactic history"

 


My Qualifications

  • 2008: PhD Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California Santa Cruz, USA
  • 2001: BS Astronomy, University of Washington, USA
  • 2001: BS Physics, University of Washington, USA

My Awards

  • 2019-2022 UNSW Scientia Fellow
  • 2014-2016 DECRA (Discovery Early Career Researcher Award) Fellowship (Australia)
  • 2010 MPIA-ZAH Ernst Patzer Prize for excellent publication by an early-career researcher in Heidelberg (Germany)

My Research Supervision


Supervision keywords


Areas of supervision

Stellar abundances, Galactic archaeology, globular clusters, machine learning in astronomical data analysis


Currently supervising

Ms Kirsten Banks: studying the physical origins of spectro-seismology and the 3D abundance profile of the Milky Way

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Location

OMB 139

Contact

02 9065 2276

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