Dr Lisa Kelsey

Astrophysicist researching the impact of galaxy environments on type Ia supernova cosmology. Co-creator of the Kilonova Seekers citizen science project, and co-lead of science communication for 4MOST.

Leverhulme & Isaac Newton Trust Early Career Fellow
Institute of Astronomy & Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge
Postdoctoral Affiliate, Newnham College

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I am an astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge working on type Ia supernovae and their host galaxy environments. My current Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship uses data from my Hubble Space Telescope program to study supernova siblings, pairs of supernovae in the same galaxy that let us disentangle local and global environmental effects.

Alongside my core research, I co-created Kilonova Seekers, a citizen science project where volunteers help discover transient events in real time, and I co-lead science communication for the 4MOST spectroscopic survey. I am a member of the Dark Energy Survey, GOTO, 4MOST, and Rubin LSST collaborations.

Recent News

Gave a talk titled "Location, Location, Location: The Role of Local Environments in Cosmology with Type Ia Supernovae" at the Yonsei Supernova Workshop, Supernova Cosmology: New Challenges and Opportunities, Yonsei University, Seoul. Jun 2026

Gave a talk titled "Seeds of Discovery: Unlocking the Southern Sky with 4MOST" to the International Women's Forum Leadership Fellows, presented three times across an innovation session at their week-long programme at Cambridge Judge Business School. Jun 2026

Attending the 4MOST All Hands Meeting at Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam. Jun 2026

Gave a talk on supernova siblings as probes of host galaxy systematics at the IoA Wednesday Seminar Series. Feb 2026

Co-chaired the Cosmic Fireworks extragalactic transients workshop at Cambridge. Jan 2026