Elisabeth Newton

"Elisabeth Newton is a professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth studying the physics of stars and their planets. Elisabeth's work focuses on the activity and evolution of M-dwarf stars and the impacts of the stars on their orbiting planets. Prior to joining Dartmouth, Elisabeth was formerly a postdoc at MKI."
- Andrew Vanderburg

A stellar astronomer's perspective on the evolution of planets, stars, and the galaxy
Our galaxy teems with stars and their planets, and their evolution is intimately linked. However, studying their evolution is challenging as most changes occur on million-to-billion year timescales. I will discuss how my research group and I seek to understand these changes in planets, stars, and the galaxy itself; uniting my work is observations of stellar rotation. I will examine the evolution of spin and magnetism in M dwarf stars, the smallest and most common type of star in the galaxy and the most promising stars for the study of temperate planets. I will then turn to young exoplanetary systems, focusing on how the discovery and characterization of these young exoplanets hinges on using stars as our guides, and our ongoing work to observe and model the evaporating atmospheres around young exoplanets. Finally, I will highlight an application of stellar astrophysics to studying the dynamical history of our galaxy.