Taissa Danilovich

Associate Investigator

Monash University

Biography

I am currently a DECRA Fellow at Monash University where I am collaborating with Amanda Karakas. I mainly work on understanding the molecular content of cool evolved stars. These stars expel newly formed material into the galaxy, which goes on to make the next generation of stars and planets. In particular, I use millimetre and submillimetre observations of molecular emission to understand things like the mass-loss rates of asymptotic giant branch stars, dust formation, binary companions and isotopic ratios. The latter can be compared with models of stellar nucleosynthesis to improve our understanding of nucleosynthesis and to derive properties like the initial masses of these stars. I recently moved back to Australia after spending 11 years in Europe, where I completed my PhD in Sweden before moving to Belgium where I took up two successive postdoctoral fellowships. I originally looked for a PhD position in Europe because I wanted the opportunity to travel more, and that certainly worked out (until the pandemic came along).