Michele Bannister
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Michele Bannister | |
|---|---|
 Bannister in front of the Gemini North telescope on Hawai'i | |
| Born | 1986 (age 38–39) |
| Alma mater | |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Bright trans-Neptunian objects in the southern sky (2014) |
| Doctoral advisor | Paul J. Francis, Brian Schmidt, Michael Brown |
| Website | www |
Michele Bannister (born 1986) is a New Zealand planetary astronomer and science communicator at the University of Canterbury, who has participated in surveying the outermost Solar System for trans-Neptunian objects.[1]
Bannister is from Waitara, New Zealand.[2] She attended Waitara High School, where she won the Korean War Essay Competition.[3] She studied astronomy and geology at the University of Canterbury, graduating in 2007 with first class honours.[2] She spent nine weeks working in the McMurdo Dry Valleys.[2] Before starting her PhD she completed a summer school in Castel Gandolfo.[4] She earned her PhD in 2014, working on trans-Neptunian objects at the Australian National University.[5] She searched for new dwarf planets at the Uppsala Southern Schmidt Telescope.[6] The telescope survived the Warrumbungles fire which destroyed twelve properties in Coonabarabran.[7] Whilst at Australian National University she played in the Flying Disc team.[8]
Research and career
In 2014 she was co-investigator on the COLours for the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS).[9] She was appointed a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria and the National Research Council (Canada) in 2013.[2][10] Whilst at the University of Victoria she discovered a trans-Neptunian object (2015 RR245) with the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope.[11][12][13][14][15][16][17] 2015 RR245 is near the Kuiper belt.[18] She played for a local Ultimate team,[19] and published poetry.[20]
In August 2016 she joined Queen's University Belfast.[21][22] She is on the Science Team of the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer.[23] She was involved with the observation of ʻOumuamua, an interstellar object from another solar system that passed through our own in 2017.[24] She studied the brightness of ʻOumuamua and presented the colour composite image.[25][26][27] 10463 Bannister was named after her in 2017.[28][29][1] In 2020 she returned to her alma mater, the University of Canterbury as a lecturer in astrophysics.[30]
Public engagement
Bannister is a popular science communicator, and has spoken at the Royal Society, The Planetary Society, SETI Institute, Irish Astronomical Society and European Astrofest.[31][32][33] In 2013 she was a curator on the RealScientists channel.[34] She reported on the images coming in from Pluto during the spacecraft flyby on Radio New Zealand and Nature in 2015.[35][36]
She discussed astronomy on Canadian radio station CFAX between 2015 and 2016.[37] She appeared on the BBC Sky at Night in 2017 and 2018.[38][39] She has written for The Conversation and The Planetary Society magazine, as well as contributing to Scientific American, Newsweek, National Geographic New Scientist, Slate and The Guardian.[40][41][42][43][44][45]
Awards and honors
Asteroid 10463 Bannister, discovered by Eleanor Helin and Schelte Bus at the Siding Spring Observatory in 1979, was named in her honor.[1] The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 13 April 2017 (M.P.C. 103975).[46]
