Ross is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in meteoritics, funded by The Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe and based in the Department of Earth Sciences. He obtained is BSc in Geology at Durham University in 2016, followed by 18 months as a research assistant in the Arthur Holmes Geochemistry Laboratory at Durham researching a meteorite called Allende. Following this, Ross started his PhD in CM chondrite meteoritics at The Open University in 2018, with completion in late 2023.
His research interests revolve around using meteorites to decipher the earliest years of the Solar System through to the first stages of planet formation, with the over-arching aim to better understand the origins of the asteroids and terrestrial planets. This also encompasses broader questions concerning how our own planet eventually became habitable.
Over the course of his early career, Ross has worked on a range of different meteorites with a particular focus on the O-isotope composition of carbonaceous chondrites and materials brought back from asteroids Ryugu and Bennu by JAXA’s and NASA’s sample return missions Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx, respectively. He is continuing this theme during his postdoc, utilising the Li-isotope system under the guidance of Professor Helen Williams to understand how water moved or flowed on early formed (primitive) asteroids.
