Rate My Professor Raphael Hirschi

Professor Raphael Hirschi is Professor of Stellar Hydrodynamics and Nuclear Astrophysics in the Physics and Astrophysics group, School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, at Keele University. He completed a Diplôme d’Ingénieur Physicien at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) from 1994 to 1998, an MSc in Physics at EPFL in 1999, and a PhD in Astrophysics at the Geneva Observatory in 2004, for which he received the Plantamour-Prevost Prize for improving models of massive stars. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Basel from 2004 to 2007, he worked on massive star evolution, nucleosynthesis, and supernovae explosions. He joined Keele University in 2007 as RCUK Academic Fellow, becoming Lecturer in Astrophysics in 2010, Reader in 2013, and Professor in 2018. He was Director of Research for the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences from 2018 to 2022 and Director of the Digital Society Institute since September 2022. He has been a Visiting Scientist at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe since 2008.

Hirschi’s research specializations include stellar hydrodynamics, nuclear astrophysics, evolution and nucleosynthesis in massive rotating stars, convective boundary mixing, and 3D hydrodynamic simulations. Major highlights encompass determining masses and fates of the most massive stars (Crowther et al. 2010, MNRAS), imprints of fast-rotating massive stars in the Galactic Bulge (Chiappini et al. 2011, Nature), grids of stellar evolution models with rotation (Ekström et al. 2012, A&A), advanced burning stages in intermediate-mass stars (Jones et al. 2013, ApJ), s-process nucleosynthesis in massive stars (Frischknecht et al. 2016, MNRAS), uncertainties in s-process yields (Nishimura et al. 2017, MNRAS), 3D simulations of carbon burning (Cristini et al. 2017, MNRAS), and complete 3D burning phases (Rizzuti et al. 2023, MNRAS). He led the ERC Starting Grant SHYNE project (2012-2017), coordinates collaborations like NuGrid and BRIDGCE, and chairs the ChETEC COST Action. With over 200 publications, 8,667 citations, and h-index 44 (2024), his multi-disciplinary work bridges observations, nuclear experiments, and models to elucidate element creation and cosmic chemical evolution.