Team

With the support from a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and a ERC Starting Grant, I am leading a research group at the University of Exeter studying debris discs and planet formation. My group is composed of postdoctoral researchers, PhD students, and Masters students working on different aspects of debris discs and planet formation. Below you can find brief descriptions of the current members of the group and their research projects.

Current members

  • Heather Johnston, Postdoctoral researcher since October 2024: Heather is studying how debris discs form in protoplanetary discs and what their properties can tell us about planet formation using dust evolution simulations.
  • Arcelia Hermosillo Ruiz, Postdoctoral researcher since October 2025: Arcelia is studying how planets and passing stars shape the structure of debris discs using N-body simulations.
  • Raphael Bendahan-West, PhD student since July 2023: Raphael is working on JWST observations of debris discs characterising their structure and the presence of planets (Bendahan-West et al. 2026).
  • Catherine Sarosi, PhD student since October 2025: Cat is working analysing and modelling ALMA observations of gas in debris discs to constrain its origin and impact on planets.
  • Benjamin Homewood, MSc student 2024/2025: Ben is analysing ALMA observations of a circumstellar disc transitioning between protoplanetary and debris disc, focusing on its dust distribution.
  • Brian Hormbrey, MPhys student 2024/2026: Brian is analysing ALMA observations of a circumstellar disc transitioning between protoplanetary and debris disc, focusing on its gas kinematics.
  • Quinn MacKerness, MPhys student 2024/2026: Quinn is analysing ALMA observations of a circumstellar disc transitioning between protoplanetary and debris disc, focusing on its gas distribution.

Former students and team members

  • Zuzanna Jonczyk, Summer student at University of Cambridge 2022: Zuzanna studied how planets shape the inner edge of debris discs.
  • Javiera Paterakis, Research intern at University of Cambridge 2022: Javiera analysed ALMA observations of gas in a debris disc.
  • James Terrill, Part III student at University of Cambridge 2021/2022: James constrained the vertical thickness of a sample of debris discs (Terrill et al. 2023).
  • Amaia Imaz-Blanco, Summer student at University of Cambridge 2021: Amaia constrained the sharpness of the inner edge of debris discs (Imaz-Blanco et al. 2023).
  • Elena Suslina, MSc student at University of Cambridge 2020/2021: Elena studied how debris disc gas can be accreted by planets.
  • Elle Miller, Summer student at MPIA 2020: Elle studied how wide debris discs can form from narrow rings in protoplanetary discs (Miller et al. 2021)

Co-supervised students

  • Isabelle Codron, PhD student at University of Exeter 2023-present (Codron et al. 2025).
  • Andrew James, PhD student at University of Exeter 2023-present.