The measurement of stellar oscillations - also called asteroseismology - is among the most powerful observational tools to study the structure and evolution of stars. The high precision photometry collected by the Kepler space telescope has revolutionized asteroseismology over the past few years by boosting the number of stars with detected oscillations by nearly two orders of magnitude over ground-based efforts, and delivering data with unprecedented signal-to-noise. In this talk I will highlight some of the recent breakthrough discoveries by the Kepler Mission, focusing in particular on the internal composition and rotation of red giants and asteroseismic studies of exoplanet host stars. I will furthermore show an example of using asteroseismology for public outreach in a project realizing a synergy between science and contemporary art.
I'm a NASA postdoctoral program fellow working with the Kepler team at NASA Ames Research Center. My main research interest is the determination of fundamental properties of late-type main-sequence and red-giant stars using observational techniques such as asteroseismology and long-baseline interferometry, with a particular focus on the characterization of exoplanet host stars.