About Me
I am currently a National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow (NSF AAPF). Working with Ben Mazin's research group at the University of California Santa Barbara, I am working on control loop software to make MKID-detector based cameras work with extreme adaptive optics systems in order to image Earth-sized planets around other stars. I am also developing a new calibration method for adaptive optics systems, called HOPP. HOPP is a method for measuring the amplitude and phase response of a MKID camera to the changes in an AO system while in operation.
I graduated with my PhD in March of 2018 from Arizona State University in Exploration Systems Design (ESD). My program is designed to be a hybrid course of study to develop instrumentation for astronomical research. The ESD program is jointly overseen by the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering. My research was in the development and characterization of instruments working in the sub-mm regime (~200 GHz to 5 terahertz [THz]) to study the lifecycle of interstellar clouds in the Milky Way galaxy. As part of my research, I was a part of the Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory-2 (STO-2) field campaign to McMurdo Station, Antarctica to assemble and deploy our payload, and then participate in flight operations from the ground. |