Department: Astrophysical Sciences Faculty Adviser: Mariangela Lisanti Year of Study: G1 Undergraduate School: University of Virginia Undergraduate Major: Astronomy-Physics, Statistics
I grew up in Northern Virginia, and completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia before spending a gap year in Stockholm prior to starting my PhD. Independent research was a huge part of my undergraduate experience: I did some quantum optics (happy to talk about it, but not my area of study anymore!) research during my second year, but later found my niche in computational galaxy formation research. Specifically, I used dwarf galaxies to test our standard paradigm of dark matter. Last year in Stockholm I compared observed galaxy clusters with their "digital twins" (i.e. simulated analogs) to test our models of how these systems evolve. Outside of academics, I spend most of my time dancing (ballet, contemporary, jazz, hip-hop) or reading (literary fiction, poetry, fantasy).
I spend too much of my money on my record collection
Broadly, I am interested in how galaxies form and evolve, and how we can use them as tests of our standard model of how the Universe evolved. I am equally interested in machine learning methods that can be applied to astronomical data. My current project involves determining what present-day properties contain the most information about how a galaxy formed, which we will then use to train a machine learning model to generate simulated galaxies that are as similar to our Milky Way as possible. I enjoy this area of research because it combines two areas of study that I love (statistics/ML and astronomy) and serves as a probe of what I consider to be the most interesting question of our time in cosmology- what is the nature of dark matter?
Interested in participating in Summer 2027 ReMatch+ program.
