Profile
I am a postdoctoral researcher working in the young stars and planet group led by Dr Ed Gillen. My primary research interests lie in the realm of young exoplanet discovery and characterisation, from working on techniques to detect planets in the presence of significant stellar activity, to developing programs to determine the masses of these challenging exoplanets.
Originally from New Zealand with a background in Physics and Mechanical Engineering, I completed my PhD at the University of Warwick under the supervision of Professor Don Pollacco, before completing a two-year postdoctoral research position at Geneva Observatory, where I worked in the group of Associate Professor Monika Lendl.
Research
Research Interests:
Currently I’m working on the detection and characterisation of new young exoplanet candidates, with a particular interest in building up an ‘age-ladder’ of how young exoplanets evolve through time. I have developed my own young-star specific detrend and search algorithm called “Young Star Detrending (YSD)”, which we are currently using to separate stellar activity from potential new young exoplanet candidates.
I have significant experience working with both photometric and spectroscopic instruments based in space and on ground, including TESS, CHEOPS, Kepler/K2, NGTS, Coralie, Gaia, HARPS/NIRPS and Gaia.
My wider research interests include:
- Young and/or long-period exoplanets
- Exoplanet detection
- Stellar activity, particularly for young stars
- Spectroscopic follow-up and characterisation of exoplanet candidates
- Exoplanetary formation and evolution
Scholarly Contributions
Battley et al. (2024), “NGTS-30b/TOI-4862b: An ~1 Gyr old 98-day transiting warm Jupiter”, A&A, 686, A230
Battley, Armstrong & Pollacco (2022), “YOUNG Star detrending for Transiting Exoplanet Recovery (YOUNGSTER) - II. Using self-organizing maps to explore young star variability in sectors 1-13 of TESS data”, MNRAS, 511, 3
Battley et al. (2021), “Revisiting the Kepler field with TESS: Improved ephemerides using TESS 2 min data”, MNRAS, 503, 3
Battley, Pollacco & Armstrong (2020), “A search for young exoplanets in Sectors 1-5 of the TESS full-frame images”, MNRAS, 496, 2
