Hello! I am an Astronomer by trade with interests and experience covering a variety of topics such as time-domain astronomy, large-scale database mining and analysis, white dwarf stars and planetary systems, astronomical instrumentation, and light pollution modeling and mitigation.
Most recently I was a Physical Scientist working with the National Park Service’s Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division, helping to monitor anthropogenic light pollution in and around parks to achieve large-landscape conservation of night sky resources. Previously I was a postdoctoral research associate at the California Institute of Technology studying a variety of variable white dwarf stars using the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and observational resources at the Keck and Palomar Observatories. I focused primarily on the discovery and characterization of white dwarfs exhibiting photometric variability due to transiting planetary debris or pulsations. I am also interested in developing novel techniques to distinguish different classes of variable white dwarfs using large time-domain survey datasets such as ZTF and the future Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). I was a graduate student at the Univeristy of Texas at Austin, where I developed photometric instruments and made extensive use of facilities at McDonald Observatory to study pulsating Helium atmosphere white dwarfs, transiting planetary debris systems, and a variety of other objects from LISA-detectable double white dwarf binaries to fast-rotating spotted white dwarfs.
In addition to astronomy, I greatly enjoy spending time outdoors, either rock climbing, playing ultimate frisbee, or just walking around in the woods! I also enjoy developing open source coding projects and tinkering with electronics.