Her research journey began through the Pulsar Search Collaboratory, where she studied bright pulses from the Crab pulsar, a neutron star. At WVU, she worked with Duncan Lorimer to analyze millisecond pulsar data in globular clusters and presented findings at several conferences, including at the Green Bank Observatory. In 2024, Halley collaborated with Emmanuel Fonseca to study how a coronal mass ejection affected pulsar timing and presented this work at the 2025 International Pulsar Timing Array meeting at the California Institute of Technology.
“I want to contribute something new and very meaningful to this grand endeavor that is science,” Halley said. “Every contribution is important, but I want to have this body of work and this book that I can put in my office that I wrote that says, ‘This is what I did for humanity.’”
After completing a PhD at WVU, she aims to pursue postdoctoral research at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory or the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Long-term, Halley said she hopes to teach physics and astronomy at a rural community college.
Congratulations, Abyss!