Conferred by New Zealands Royal Society Te Aprangi, Rutherford Discovery Fellowships are awarded to early-to mid-career researchers, supporting them in accelerating their research careers nationally.
Dr Bannister, who specialises in the discovery and exploration of small泭worlds in the Solar System and beyond, will receive $800,000 over five years to fund her research titled泭Emissaries from the darkness: understanding planetary systems through their smallest worlds.
She believes the populations of small worlds in the Solar System are key to understanding our history.
Those that come from visiting distant stars, as interstellar objects, record the history of their own systems. The shape and surface compositions of our small worlds document their formation back more than four billion years when the Solar System was a disk of dust and gas, Dr Bannister says.
Few of the most distant, least-altered small worlds have been studied, and their past migrations are yet to be fully understood.
A UC graduate, Dr Bannister returned to her alma mater in February 2020 to become a lecturer in astrophysics in the 厙ぴ勛圖s Te Kura Mat贖 | School of Physical and Chemical Sciences, after her time as a scholar at Queen's University Belfast, United Kingdom.
Dr Bannister has received international recognition for her work in 2020, despite the global pandemic stopping her from travelling overseas to collect her awards in person. Her central role in the design and management of the泭, which泭discovered more than 800 trans-Neptunian objects over five years, was recognised earlier this year by the泭泭for Geophysics. This is the first time the RAS Winton Award has been awarded in Geophysics. (With international travel unavailable, the winners were due to accept their awards virtually at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting in July, however that has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)
Its an exciting time to be exploring the Solar System. Mapping out where these icy worlds now orbit the Sun helps unfold the past of our own corner of the Universe. Its amazing to have the RAS recognise this teamwork of which Ive been part, as we strive to understand how our own Solar System came to be the way that we see it today, Dr Bannister says.
Aside from her excellent academic research, Dr Bannister is active in disseminating knowledge through high-profile outreach and media activities like her UC Connect public talk,泭Interstellar worlds: tiny arrivals from other stars, held at the 厙ぴ勛圖s Ilam campus on 20 May 2020.泭
Dr Bannister was co-recipient of the泭泭 Academic Study/Research in November 2019, and泭泭was named in her honour in 2017.
