Get to know the new Assistant Professor at the Department of Astrophysics – Kristina Kislyakova

Get to know the new Assistant Professor at the Department of Astrophysics – Kristina Kislyakova

Kristina Kislyakova is an assistant professor for Solar system research at the University of Vienna's Department of Astrophysics since September 2024.

She focuses her research on planetary habitability, star-planet interactions, magnetospheric physics, and the evolution of planetary atmospheres. A notable part of her work examines how stellar winds affect planetary atmospheres and habitability over geological timescales.

Additionally, she has worked on modeling polar outflow rates from early Earth and exploring mechanisms like electromagnetic induction heating on exoplanets, which could drive volcanic activity and impact planetary evolution. Her work, published in leading journals like Nature Astronomy, paves the way for future high-resolution studies of stellar winds and their interactions with exoplanetary environments.

Recently, Kristina was awarded an ERC Consolidator grant titled "Early Earth, Venus, and Mars as Exoplanets (EASE), which comprises a joint evolutionary study of volcanism, atmospheric escape to space, and spectroscopy. Kristina and her team will model interior processes, the evolution of lower and upper atmospheres, and the evolving atmospheric spectra of Earth, Venus, and Mars and their possible exoplanetary analogues. They will in particular characterize possible “failed” analogues of Earth and investigate if they could have become habitable planets under slightly different conditions.

Kristina has originally joined the Department of Astrophysics in 2017 as a postdoctoral researcher. She continued working here as a senior scientist (2020-2024), and now as an assistant professor building her own research group.