Yvonne Elsworth

In 1984, Elsworth was appointed to a faculty position at the University of Birmingham, where she focused on helioseismology, solar physics, solar variability, and latterly asteroseismology, stellar physics and stellar variability.^{[2][9][10][11]} She participated in and later led the Birmingham Solar Oscillation Network. Her research has been funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).^[12]

Elsworth was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2015 for her work on helioseismology.^[1] Her certificate of election reads:

Professor Elsworth's pioneering work in establishing and maintaining an important scientific investigation into the internal structure of the Sun using helioseismic data from the autonomous Birmingham network of observatories complemented by extant data from modes of intermediate degree has permitted an unprecedented investigation into the inner core of the Sun where the nuclear reactions are taking place. This has led to the conclusion that the deficiency of solar neutrinos detected on Earth was an issue of nuclear physics or particle physics, not of solar modelling; it also established that the very centre of the Sun rotates no more rapidly than the convective envelope, a matter of serious dynamical concern. Furthermore, Elsworth has led her group to study solar-cycle-related variations in the Sun's convective envelope, providing important structural information to theorists investigating the solar dynamo. Her current extension to seismic studies of stars other than the Sun is already contributing to a transformation in our understanding of stellar evolution.^[1]

In 2011, she was awarded the Payne-Gaposchkin Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics (IoP).^[13] and in 2020 the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in Geophysics.^[14]

Elsworth is also a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP) and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS).^[15]