Student testimonials

Anett Simon-Zsok "In my high school years I always dreamed of being a researcher in the field of astronomy. Now, as an undergraduate student, I find myself lucky to have Dr. Meridith Joyce as my supervisor, guiding me in the initial steps toward realizing that dream. Meridith has helped me a lot to overcome my fear of presenting my work in front of an audience and she always kept giving me good advice on how to handle different situations in the academic life.

During our meetings, she consistently fostered an environment where I felt encouraged to ask questions and seek clarification when needed. I have learned from her that there is no such thing as a bad question. Her vast knowledge spans across diverse areas, including statistics, astrophysics, programming, machine learning and academic writing. Despite the complexities of my learning journey, she has consistently shown understanding and provided guidance with a calm demeanor. She always took the time to ensure I maintained a healthy balance in my personal life. Overall I can say that Meridith's exceptional mentoring skills have played a crucial role in my academic journey."

Anett Simon-Zsok - Eotvos Lorand University / CSFK Konkoly Observatory

Giulia Cinquegrana - Monash University "Meridith is one of my PhD supervisors, I have been working with her directly on a project for close to a year now. Throughout that time, she has answered all my questions without judgement, treated me with the respect of a colleague, and pushed me to both expand my skills and have more confidence in the skills I already have. She has met with me every week, regardless of what progress I have made and checks in on my mental health and wellbeing. She has gone out of her way to seek extra-curricular opportunities that would not otherwise have been available to me. On numerous occasions, Meridith has translated nuanced academia-type situations for me, which I have found extremely helpful as someone young and new to this field and industry.

A good supervisor is more crucial to a PhD than the subject matter itself. She has completely embodied those qualities in all our interactions (as well as ensuring that I also enjoy the subject matter!) I am extremely happy with my supervisory team, and I have no doubt I will call on Meridith as a colleague and mentor throughout my career after completing my PhD."

Giulia Cinquegrana - Monash University
Check out her work here:
Solar Calibration of the Convective Mixing Length for Use with the AESOPUS Opacities in MESA (arXiv)
Giulia Cinquegrana and Meridith Joyce, RNAAS, April 2022
The most metal-rich stars in the universe: chemical contributions of low- and intermediate-mass asymptotic giant branch stars with metallicities within 0.04 <= Z<= 0.10 (arXiv)
Giulia Cinquegrana and Amanda Karakas, MNRAS, February 2022
The most metal-rich asymptotic giant branch stars (arXiv)
Amanda Karakas, Giulia Cinquegrana and Meridith Joyce, MNRAS, November 2021


Jianling Tang "Meridith goes beyond textbook knowledge and teaches step-by- step, incorporating the latest findings in academia. I think this method of teaching is helpful to students in their research careers. Because of her up-to-date lecturing, I became interested in using MESA and introducing 1D convection to predict the fundamental parameters of the metal-poor stars.

Besides teaching, she is also a very patient supervisor with undergraduate students who are new to astronomy research. Not only is she patient, but she is also very responsive when students encounter problems, and she provides timely guidance and discusses potential problems with them. She helps students find research opportunities in the academic world, gives them the opportunity to present their work and walks them through the process of publishing their work. I think this ability is very valuable and essential as a professor. All in all, I can attest to her ability as a conscientious, thoughtful supervisor. I believe that Meridith will do a great job in both teaching and research."

Jianling Tang - ANU
Check out her work here:
Revised Best Estimates for the Age and Mass of the Methuselah Star HD 140283 Using MESA and Interferometry and Implications for 1D Convection (arXiv)
Jianling Tang and Meridith Joyce, RNAAS, April 2021



Yixiao Zhou "Dr. Meridith Joyce is extremely fast and efficient in providing constructive feedback about my research problems and thesis writing. Meridith also took the full responsibility of organising high-quality external examiners for my thesis, which is evident by the very helpful examiner's report I got. Meridith is a friendly and helpful supervisor who is always willing to help me with not only research problems but also other challenges I faced during my PhD."

Yixiao Zhou (PhD) - Aarhus University

Check out his work here:
The relationship between photometric and spectroscopic oscillation amplitudes from 3D stellar atmosphere simulations (arXiv)
Yixiao Zhou, Thomas Nordlander, Luca Casagrande, Meridith Joyce, Yaguang Li, Anish M. Amarsi, Henrique Reggiani, Martin Asplund, MNRAS, Feb 2021


Lecturing and Tutoring

Australian National University

ASTR3005 Research: Supervision and assessment of single-term indepedent research project in astronomy

ANU Summer Scholars Program: Supervision of research internship for undergraduates in astronomy

ASTR3007-6007 Stars: Lecturing, course design, assignment and exam writing

University of Cape Town

Master's computational astrophysics: tutor and marker

Master's computational astrophysics: guest lecturer

3rd year undergraduate general astrophysics: guest lecturer

Dartmouth College

Astronomy 25, 60, and 81- Dartmouth Astronomy Foreign Studies Program, UCT, South Africa, Brian Chaboyer and John Thorstensen

Astronomy 25- Galaxies and Cosmology, Brian Chaboyer

Astronomy 15- Stars and The Milky Way, Gary Wegner

Physics 3- General Physics I, Yorke Brown

Astronomy 1- Exploration of the Solar System, Brian Chaboyer

Astronomy 1- Exploration of the Solar System, Rob Fesen