Dr Amanda Karakas is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Physics & Astronomy at Monash University. She received her PhD from Monash University in 2004 and spent three years working in Canada before returning to Australia to take up a postdoctoral position at the Australian National University in 2006. Amanda is currently the Vice-President of the International Astronomical Union Commission on Star Clusters throughout the Universe and has previously been a Council member of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

Amanda's expertise lies in calculating theoretical models of Sun-like stars (up to about 10 solar masses) from their beginnings on the main sequence to the end of their life, when they become white dwarfs. A dominant theme of her research has been understanding the origin of the elements throughout cosmic time and the role that Sun-like stars play in this story.