Astrophysicist Alison Sills graduated with her BSc in Astronomy from the University of Western Ontario in 1993 and earned her PhD in Astronomy from Yale University in 1998.

She completed post-doctoral research work at Ohio State University and the University of Leicester between 1998 - 2001 and has been an Assistant Professor of Astronomy here at McMaster University since 2001.

Sills is the only theoretical astrophysicist in Canada studying the dynamics of globular clusters and star collisions. Her other areas of interest include: stellar evolution, stellar dynamics, stellar populations, blue stragglers, binary stars and smoothed particle hydrodynamics.

Her research was featured in a Scientific American cover article “When Stars Collide” and her expertise has been sought by publications such as Science and the CBC radio show Quirks and Quarks.

Professor Sills holds the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) University Faculty Award and won the Dirk Brower Prize in Astronomy from Yale in 1999.

In 2002, Professor Sills was honoured with the prestigious Polanyi Prize for Physics, awarded annually to young researchers in the early stages of their career who are working at an Ontario university.
Alison Sills' Home Page

Read the Hamilton Spectator's interview with Professor Sills

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