Biography

I am a Reader (Associate Professor) in Astrophysics at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth, as well as a Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History. In 2013, I received my PhD in Physics and Astronomy from Tel-Aviv University. I then held two postdoctoral research positions at The Johns Hopkins University (2013-2014) and New York University (2014-2016), before moving to the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian as an independent National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow (2016-2020).

Research interests

I study supernovae - the explosions of stars - as well as other transient astrophysical phenomena. I use observations (images and spectra) obtained with ground- and space-based observatories and large-scale spectroscopic surveys (such as SDSS and DESI). I am specifically interested in uncovering the nature of the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae, studying these supernovae when they are several years old, and conducting population studies of supernovae in general. I am also working on discovering and characterizing tidal disruption events - flares caused by stars that are ripped apart by super-massive black holes - and the galaxies in which they occur.