Dr Sara Webb

The last 100 years of astronomy has seen our knowledge of our own home galaxy, universe and even the thing’s that make-up us change in almost immeasurable ways. We simultaneously know more and less about the Universe we live in, and with new and exciting telescopes, we’ll soon have too much data to work with manually.

To prepare for the future of Astronomy, Dr. Sara Webb works with optical telescope data and machine learning to explore explosions in the universe and how astronomers find them. Sara focused on studying small, yet mighty, red dwarf stars and their flares. When a star flares, energy and matter are spewed out into the surrounding solar system, and Sara has worked to build up a large and unique population of these stars that flare in very short periods of time. In her broader research into investigating the use of AI in team situations, Sara is currently working on studying how astronomers work in their various cognitive states.

Aside from her academic research, Sara also coordinates and co-leads Swinburne’s unique student space challenge programs, sending student led experiments to the International Space Station. This Australian wide program gives students insight into a space science career.