How can A.I. help us find exploding stars and hungry black holes?

Guest Speaker

Thursday, 10th July 2025 (19:45 - 22:00)

Venue: Hybrid

Dr Heloise Stevance will discus how A.I can help us find exploding stars and hungry black holes.

Modern sky surveys can image the entire sky every night. In doing so, they discover new cosmic explosions - from stars collapsing to stars being devoured by black holes. But the sky is vast and the alerts are many - far too many for humans to keep up with. When the Vera Rubin Observatory opens its dome in 2025, millions of nightly discoveries will flood astronomers. Partnering with experts in sky surveys and applied machine learning, Dr Stevance is developing a Virtual Research Assistant that harnesses A.I. to help experts find the cosmic explosions that made the space dust we come from.

Join online if you can't meet us at the meeting room HERE

Speaker: Heloise Stevance

Originally born and raised in France, I moved to the UK to study Physics and Astronomy at the University of Sheffield. After working as a support astronomer at the Isaac Newton Group in La Palma for a year, I obtained my Masters of Physics in 2015. I subsequently started a PhD studying the 3D shape of Core Collapse Supernovae, and earned my title in Spring 2019. In July of that year, I joined the University of Auckland as a Research Fellow to research the evolution of massive stars to better understand how they die and produce Supernovae and Kilonovae. In 2021 I was honoured to receive the title of Beatrice Tinsley Lecturer by the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand, which led to a national tour of Public Lectures to introduce the public to Black-Hole and Neutron Star mergers. Finally in 2023 I received a Schmidt A.I. in Science Fellowship from the University of Oxford where I am currently developing A.I. models for international sky surveys that can detect thousands of supernovae and other stellar explosions every year.