Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Melbourne
I'm currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Gravitational Wave Astrophysics at the University of Melbourne as part of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav). I'm broadly interested in studying AGN variability and black hole accretion using a combination of theoretical and observational techniques. I received my Ph.D. in 2025 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where I worked with Professor Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz. Prior to that, I obtained my B.S. in Astronomy & Comprehensive Physics from the University of Washington in 2019.
What happens to the accretion disk of a supermassive black hole when a binary companion passes through it on an eccentric, inclined orbit? We find that this interaction generates spiral density waves, which temporarily boost the accretion rate onto the primary. These accretion flares could potentially be the driver behind some changing-look AGN.
Transients emanating from nearby supermassive black holes can be difficult to identify when the galactic nucleus is highly dust-obscured. Here, we use host galaxy properties to help constrain the origin of a population of veiled transients known as MIRONG (mid-infrared outbursts in nearby galaxies).
Changing-look active galactic nuclei (CL AGN) represent some of the most extreme examples of AGN variability detected to date. In this paper, we study CL AGN host galaxies to understand the conditions responsible for triggering CL activity.
Email: sierra.dodd@unimelb.edu.au