Michele Bannister

Research and career In 2014 she was co-investigator on the COLours for the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS). She was appointed a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria and the National Research Council (Canada) in 2013. Whilst at the University of Victoria she discovered a trans-Neptunian object with the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope. is near the Kuiper belt. She played for a local Ultimate team, and published poetry.

In August 2016 she joined Queen's University Belfast. She is on the Science Team of the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer. She was involved with the observation of ʻOumuamua, an interstellar object from another solar system that passed through our own in 2017. She studied the brightness of ʻOumuamua and presented the colour composite image. 10463 Bannister was named after her in 2017.

Public engagement Bannister is a popular science communicator, and has spoken at the Royal Society, The Planetary Society, SETI Institute, Irish Astronomical Society and European Astrofest. In 2013 she was a curator on the RealScientists channel. She reported on the images coming in from Pluto during the spacecraft flyby on Radio New Zealand and Nature in 2015.

She discussed astronomy on Canadian radio station CFAX between 2015 and 2016. She appeared on the BBC Sky at Night in 2017 and 2018. She has written for The Conversation and The Planetary Society magazine, as well as contributing to Scientific American, Newsweek, National Geographic New Scientist, Slate and The Guardian.

Awards and honors Asteroid 10463 Bannister, discovered by Eleanor Helin and Schelte Bus at the Siding Spring Observatory in 1979, was named in her honor.