Research
current interests
cosmology
high-energy astrophysics, astroparticle physics, and plasma astrophysics
plaentary science
multiwavelength astronomy
instrumentation
- cosmic microwave background radiation
- large-scale structure / galaxy formation and evolution
- dark matter
- dark energy
- reionization and cosmic dawn
- high-z galaxy searches
high-energy astrophysics, astroparticle physics, and plasma astrophysics
- gamma rays
- cosmic rays
- neutrinos
- particle acceleration
- air showers
- multi-messenger particle astrophysics
- particle dark-sector physics
- intracluster medium of galaxy clusters
- radiative plasma astrophysics
- relativistic plasma turbulance
plaentary science
- mars science
- astrobiology
- planetary geology
- planetary interiors and geophysics
- planetary defense
- mission devlopment and instruments
multiwavelength astronomy
instrumentation
current projects
upgrade and characterization of the prototype schwarzschild–couder telescope camera
appointment: graduate student researcher, wisconsin icecube particle astrophysics center (wipac) and cherenkov telescope array observatory (ctao), university of wisconsin-madison (uw-madison) (summer 2026)
Very-high-energy gamma rays provide a window into some of the most extreme environments in the universe. The Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) will study these sources by detecting flashes of Cherenkov light produced when gamma rays interact with Earth's atmosphere.
Working with Justin Vandenbroucke at the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC), I am contributing to the upgrade and characterization of the prototype Schwarzschild–Couder Telescope (pSCT) camera. The upgraded camera uses silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) to detect Cherenkov light with a highly pixelated imaging system. My work will involve analyzing calibration data to characterize SiPM response, evaluate front-end electronics, and investigate sources of electronic noise during commissioning. This will help validate the upgraded camera and establish the calibrations needed for future very-high-energy gamma-ray observations with CTAO.
At the inauguration ceremony of the prototype SCT. The focal-plane camera is seen between the primary mirror (9.7 m) and the secondary (5.4 m). (Credit: Deivid Ribeiro, Columbia University) Artistic Rendering of CTAO-South. By CTAO.
Working with Justin Vandenbroucke at the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC), I am contributing to the upgrade and characterization of the prototype Schwarzschild–Couder Telescope (pSCT) camera. The upgraded camera uses silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) to detect Cherenkov light with a highly pixelated imaging system. My work will involve analyzing calibration data to characterize SiPM response, evaluate front-end electronics, and investigate sources of electronic noise during commissioning. This will help validate the upgraded camera and establish the calibrations needed for future very-high-energy gamma-ray observations with CTAO.
past projects
separating cosmic signals with wavelet statistics
appointment: simons-nsbp research scholar, center for computational astrophysics, flatiron institute nyc (summer 2025)
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) preserves a snapshot of the early universe, but its observed temperature fluctuations also contain secondary signals produced as light travels through evolving cosmic structure. One such signal, the kinetic Sunyaev–Zeldovich (kSZ) effect, can reveal the distribution and motion of ionized matter. Because it has the same blackbody spectrum as the primary CMB, however, conventional multi-frequency methods cannot easily isolate it.
Working with William Coulton through the Simons-NSBP Scholars Program at the Flatiron Instutute, I investigated a new statistical approach to separating the primary CMB from the kSZ. Using simulated sky maps, I applied Wavelet Phase Harmonics (WPH; Regaldo-Saint Blancard et al. 2021) to capture non-Gaussian features and spatial correlations that conventional power-spectrum analyses cannot fully describe. I found that the primary CMB and kSZ signal produce measurably different responses across several families of WPH statistics, with amplitude-based moments providing the strongest separation. This proof of concept demonstrates that higher-order spatial statistics can help distinguish cosmological signals that cannot be separated by their frequency spectra alone. With further validation on realistic survey data, this approach could improve measurements of the CMB while enabling new constraints on cosmic structure formation, ionized matter, neutrino masses, and the history of reionization.
You can read my senior thesis related to this work here :)
reclassifying a young brown dwarf
appointment: lamat fellow/reu intern, the lamat institute (department of astronomy & astrophysics) university of california, santa cruz (summer 2023)
Brown dwarfs occupy the boundary between stars and planets: they are too small to sustain hydrogen fusion but more massive than giant planets. Because young brown dwarfs share the temperatures, surface gravities, and cloud processes of directly imaged exoplanets, they provide valuable laboratories for understanding how silicate clouds shape substellar atmospheres.
As a researcher in the LAMAT Institute REU at UC Santa Cruz, I worked with Caprice Phillips and Anusha Pai Asnodkar to study 1RXS B, a young, intermediate-mass brown dwarf. Building on previous analyses, I developed computational methods to place spectra from different instruments on a consistent wavelength grid and compared 1RXS B with approximately 3,000 reference spectra—nearly five times the number available when the object was discovered. Using reduced chi-squared spectral matching, I reclassified 1RXS B as an L0 brown dwarf, updating its previous late M-dwarf classification and placing it firmly within the temperature range where silicate clouds form. This refined classification makes 1RXS B a stronger benchmark for interpreting the atmospheres of directly imaged exoplanets.