Name: Donna Rodgers-Lee

Title: SFI-IRC Pathway Research Fellow

E-Mail: dlee@cp.dias.ie

Address: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, School of Cosmic Physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics Section, 31 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2, D02 XF86, Ireland

About me

I am a Research Fellow at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, where I am the Principal Investigator of a Science Foundation Ireland – Irish Research Council Pathway project. My project investigates the high-energy environment that exoplanets are exposed to from their host stars and the Galaxy. Prior to this, I was a post-doctoral Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) and also at the University of Hertfordshire (UK). I completed my PhD at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies on protoplanetary disk evolution. I am an active member of the Ariel Consortium. Ariel is an ESA medium-class mission dedicated to characterising exoplanet atmospheres. I am also a member of the Mid INfrared Disk Survey (MINDS) JWST Guaranteed Time programme that is looking at ~50 planet-forming disks around stars like our Sun.

Research Interests

My group is interested in the high-energy environment surrounding exoplanets orbiting stars like our Sun. In particular, we are interested in the number of high-energy particles, known as cosmic rays, that impact on exoplanet atmospheres and affect chemistry. We use numerical methods and theory to model how cosmic rays travel through the stellar wind and down through the exoplanet atmosphere. Our models predict the number of high-energy particles at any given distance from the central star in an exoplanetary system. Our results can be used in chemical models of exoplanet atmospheres in order to guide upcoming JWST observations and to help shape Ariel’s target list. 

Publications and CV

My CV can be found on ORCID and a list of my publications are available on ADS.

Group

• Dr. Donna Rodgers-Lee (Principal Investigator)
• Shauna Rose Raeside (PhD student)