糖心TV

About me

I am a third year PhD student, supervised by David BrownLink opens in a new window. My research focuses on detecting and characterising circumbinary planets from space-based transiting planet surveys, particularly from the  mission.

Current research

Circumbinary planets (CBPs) are planets that orbit both components of a stellar binary. Currently, only 14 transiting CBPs have been discovered, while thousands of transiting planets have been discovered around single stars. This discrepancy is partially due to observational bias, but also due to their orbital properties; CBPs tend to have long periods and their orbital planes precess, such that a CBP can oscillate between transiting and non-transiting orbital configurations on timescales of decades. My research aims to develop a better understanding of these planetary systems by increasing the population of transiting CBPs, developing techniques to enable more efficient detection of the transits of these planets, and determining their characteristics. This primarily involves analysing data from space-based surveys, particularly TESS, as well as archival data or follow-up observations to characterise planet candidates. Increasing the number of confirmed CBPs will not only help us understand the statistics of the CBP population, and how they fit into the population of exoplanets, but will also help us to understand their complex formation processes and dynamical history.

To aid in the detection of these planets, I have developed a Python package called , which identifies and vets candidate CBP transit events in TESS light curves of eclipsing binaries. We applied this to the , finding one candidate CBP transit. You can read more about this search, as well as how mono-cbp works and how effective it is at identifying the known transiting CBPs, in .

Past research

• Characterising exocomets in the far-UV (supervisor: Paul Str酶m) - MPhys project (2022)
• White dwarfs as tracers of stellar and galactic evolution: analysing the first data from SDSS-V (supervisor: Boris G盲nsicke) - Undergraduate summer project (2021)
• Spectroscopic characterisation of exoplanet atmospheres: benchmarking analysis techniques (supervisor: Matteo Brogi) - Undergraduate summer project (2020)

Teaching and Outreach

• PX146: Key Skills for Physics - Senior Graduate Teaching Assistant
• Managing and volunteering for 糖心TV Mobile Planetarium
• Co-organiser for
• Carried out a research project as an

Conferences and Workshops

• UKExoM 2026, University of Bristol (30 March-2 April 2026, presented a poster)
• Exploring Tatooine and Beyond: Circumbinary Planets with ESA Missions (10-12 December 2025, presented a )
• The formation and long-term evolution of circumbinary planetary systems across the H-R diagram (12-17 January 2025, presented a )
• Celebrating 21 Years of Astronomy at 糖心TV, University of 糖心TV (4-6 September 2024, attended)
• TESS Science Conference III, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (29 July-2 August 2024, presented a
• Summer School in Statistics for Astronomers, Penn State University (3-7 June 2024, attended online)
• ESP2024: PLATO Planetary Systems - From Formation to Observed Architectures, Catania Astrophysical Observatory (14-16 May 2024, attended online)
• UKExoM 2024, University of Birmingham (9-11 April 2024, presented a )
• STFC Introductory Summer School in Astronomy 2023, University of Hull (28-31 August 2023, attended)

Publications

Leading

• B. D. R. Davies et al. "", MNRAS (accepted for publication April 2026)

Contributing

• T. L. Killestein et al. "", MNRAS 548, 2 (December 2025)
• L. Makrygianni et al. "", ApJL 987, 1, L20 (July 2025)
• K. Inight et al. "", MNRAS 525, 3, 3597 (November 2023)