Welcome to my little part of the interwebs! I’m a research scientist at Caltech and a member of the High Energy Astrophysics Group. My scientific interests are pretty varied within astrophysics (spanning supernova remnants, X-ray binaries, solar physics, prompt emission from supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, etc), though in graduate school I worked on Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes (TGFs), which are high energy emission (think positron and electron beams) associated with electrical discharges in lightning.
I joined Caltech in 2009 as a postdoc, working on the ground calibration of the X-ray detectors for NuSTAR, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope ARray. NuSTAR is a NASA Small Explorer that studies the hottest and densest materials in the Universe including black holes, exploding stars, and our own Sun.
After launch, I became a Principal Mission Scientist for NuSTAR (you can watch me give a talk about NuSTAR via a virtual von Karman Talk at JPL from 2022.). Two main side quests on NuSTAR are the NuSTAR Stray Cats and NuSTAR SINGS (Search for INteresting Gamma-ray Signals) Projects, both of which leverage existing NuSTAR data to enhance the science return from the mission.
I also work in developing new missions. In ~2020 I became the Project Scientist for the UltraViolet EXplorer (UVEX) which was selected via the NASA 2021 Medium Explorer in 2024 for a launch in 2030. I switched roles and become the Payload Manager for UVEX in the Fall of 2024, guiding the implementation of the telescope.
On the hardware side, I’m the PI for an X-ray detector effort at Caltech which is developing next-generation hard X-ray detectors for use on future missions such as The High Energy Explorer.
You want to know more about me? My LinkedIn profile is mostly kept to date and I also have a science CV for your perusal that is up-to-date as of May 2024. The full list of my scientific publications can be found via this search query on the ADS.
You can find me on github, where I mostly contribute to the NuSTAR public repo.
Here for something other than science?
I sometimes write here. Below is a list of my last few posts.