Celebrating Black History Month
In celebration of Black History Month 2020, we are proud to highlight two of our alumnae: Abigail Frost and Aude Alapini-Odunlade. Abigail and Aude both made valuable contributions to the Physics Department at Exeter and have gone on to successful careers in research and teaching.
Abigail Frost
Abigail’s research investigates the most massive stars in the Universe. Through her Masters project at the University of Exeter, she studied massive star formation using millimetre interferometry and through her PhD, at the University of Leeds, she used techniques such as infrared interferometry, imaging and 3D radiative transfer modelling to study the discs and dusty natal cradles from which these massive stars form. During her current postdoctoral position at KU Leuven, she studies massive stars at various points throughout their lives. In particular, she focuses on investigating massive stellar multiplicity using interferometric data from the Very Large Telescope and Interferometer.
Aude Alapini-Odunlade
Aude studied for her PhD at Exeter working in the field of extrasolar planets. She developed an algorithm to remove the contribution from stellar variability to transit signals of extrasolar planets, which was successfully applied to data from the CoRoT space telescope mission. At Exeter, Aude greatly contributed to outreach, including travelling to Benin to promote astronomy. She is now a physics teacher at Clyst Vale Community College.