Nikki Miller, PhD

Biography in pictures

Here you can some highlights of the astronomy-related things I’ve been involved in since 2017. When I’m not doing science or volunteering my time at the IAYC, you can find me learning Swedish, German and Polish, making music, taking photos, travelling or playing board/video games.

July 2025. Helped organise (SOC) and gave a talk at the Keele Binaries Conference.

May 2025. Gave 3 talks in 6 days at PLATO meetings in Stockholm and Liège and a seminar at SU.

April 2025. Travelled to Nice for the PLATO Benchmark Stars work package meeting.

open telescope dome on the top of a building, with clear blue sky — Feburary 2025. Received training to use the Westerlund telescope at Uppsala.

four smiling young astronomers in front of a big window showing a forest autumnal trees — October 2024. Hosted visitors for PLATO stellar science pipeline developer meeting in Uppsala.

large group of people posing for the official conference photo — October 2024. Presented a poster at the Astronomdagarna 2024 meeting in Lund.

smiling group of young people holding telescopes and sticks as if they were lightsabers — August 2024. Returned to the IAYC for a final time to run a group on data and observations.

Large group photo of people at a conference, standing on stairs at a conference centre — June 2024. Invited talk at the asteroseismology in binaries session at EAS 2024 in Padova.

June 2024. Started new job as a postdoctoral researcher in Uppsala University in Sweden.

me standing in front of the partially-constructed building of an extremely large telescope (approximately the same size as the Colisseum in Rome). i am wearing a red hard hat and yellow high vis jacket — February 2024. Had the opportunity to tour the Extremely Large Telescope site!

me standing next to a large telescope in a dome. the telescope mirror diameter of 1.5m is not much smaller than me at 1.65m — February 2024. Observing run at Cerro Murphy Observatory in Chile for 3 weeks.

Group of astronomers in smart-casual attire in front of some promotional banners for "Obserwatorium Cerro Murphy im. Rolfa Chini" — February 2024. Attended the inauguration ceremony of Cerro Murphy Observatory in Warsaw.

Me sat at a laptop at the front of a seminar room, giving a hybrid seminar presentation. — October 2023. Research visit to CAMK Toruń where I also gave a seminar on my work.

me standing at the centre of a circle of young astronomers, on a sandy football pitch in Germany. — July 2023. Returned to the IAYC for 3 more weeks as the Non-Astronomical Program leader.

me in smart clothes (shirt, blazer, dark trousers) being held on the shoulders of two female colleagues — April 2023. Voted President of the non-profit The International Workshop for Astronomy (IWA).

me on my graduation day in a full PhD gown and cap in front of an old building — January 2023. Graduated from Keele University with a PhD in Astrophysics, in the snow.

image of the exterior of CAMK institute, with snow on the ground and a path carved out of the snow — January 2023. Started working at CAMK PAN Warsaw as a postdoc in the Araucaria project team.

group of 10 young people posing in a silly manner with various musical instruments in front of a youth hostel — July 2022. Returned to IAYC, leading a group on music’s intersection with astronomy.

screenshot of thesis front cover. title: fundamental effective temperature measurements for eclipsing binary stars — July 2022. Submitted my PhD thesis to the examiners. You can read my accepted thesis here.

artists impression of the NASA swift space telescope, which looks like Hubble but gold and shorter. — February 2022. Won time as PI on NASA’s Swift observatory, to observe EBs in the ultraviolet.

group photo of scientists in front of a hotel conference room — September 2021. Gave an invited talk, in person(!) at the 2021 Araucaria meeting in Sopot.

screenshot of many assorted windows for controlling the VLT and taking spectra. — October 2020. Woke up very early to remotely observe AI Phe during totality with UVES.

July 2020. Organised the first virtual edition of the IAYC, and supervised four student projects.

graph of my headline result from my first paper. first panel shows two spectra of two stars, the lower two panels show distortion functions that were applied to the spectra, with a low amplitude in the optical wavelengths and higher amplitude in the UV and far IR. — July 2020. My first first-author paper is accepted for publication in MNRAS. Learn more here.

me in front of the very large dome of the 1.93m telescope at Haute Provence observatory — March 2020. Observing run on the 1.93m telescope at OHP. My first visit was in September 2019.

group of young people in colourful clothes standing in front of a forest, posing with cameras and a rudimentary sundial made out of embroidery hoops. — July 2019. Supervised ten students on observing-related projects at the IAYC 2019.

me standing next to two 0.4m diameter telescopes on a single fork mount. it's night and you can see a few stars in the sky — January 2019. Commissioning Xamidimura at the South African Astronomical Observatory.

group of 6 people in their 20s-30s posing together in front of snowy mountains — December 2018. Worked at the ESO Astronomy Camp as a supervisor for the second time.

old building with a recently mowed lawn and formal gardens in front. — September 2018. Started my PhD at Keele University, working with Dr. Pierre Maxted.

group of young people in matching t-shirts. i am lying sideways on the grass, and most people are making silly faces. — July 2018. First time as a leader at IAYC. Led a group on theory and simulations in astrophysics.

me in an undergraduate graduation gown and mortarboard, shaking hands with the middle-aged chancellor of the university on stage. — July 2018. Graduated from the University of Warwick with a BSc MPhys (Hons) degree.

me standing in front of a poster entitled "XUV irradiation of exoplanets and star-planet interaction" — June 2018. Presented my Masters’ project at Warwick and CAPS ’18.

astrophoto of an observatory complex on a snowy hill, with star trails in the sky and snowy mountains in the background. — December 2017. Worked at the ESO Astronomy Camp.

photo of the old town in Warsaw, elevated for a good view of the royal palace and other reconstructed colourful buildings. — August 2017. Internship at CAMK with Prof. Rodolfo Smiljanic.

four people dressed very smartly standing in front of a "Warwick SU Socs Awards" backdrop. I am holding a glass trophy that reads "Best New Society 2017" — May 2017. Warwick AstroSoc won “Best New Society” award.