Research
A list of my publications can be found here. For those who prefer to search for me with an ORCiD, mine is
0000-0002-0041-4356.
In early 2025, I released two paper investigating how two different mechanisms for how massive stars destroy the clouds in which they are born interact with one another. Stellar wind-blown bubbles (a focus of my previous work) and photo-ionized gas affect each other in complex ways. I developed a new semi-analytic model to understand this interaction, and then tested it with a suite of detailed numerical simulations.
At the beginning of my postdoctoral work I added magnetic fields to my simulations of stellar wind-blown bubbles. I expected this to be a relatively straight-forward addition with predictable beahvior. Instead, these new simulations lead me down a rabbit hole of questioning how well we can trust these numerical simulations to capture the complex mixing processes that occur at the interface between the hot, shocked wind gas and the cold, dense ambient gas. I demonstrated that this is a fundamentally unresolved process in current simulations, revealed by the dynamical role that magnetic fields play in suppressing mixing. Understanding the root of this problem is still part of my ongoing research.
I went to undergrad at Carnegie Mellon University, intending to double major in physics and philosophy, I eventually got
too hooked on math and switched to physics and mathematics, specializing in astrophysics.
Inspired by my undergrad research in Galactic Dynamics with
Dr. Matthew Walker
and my summer research experience for
undergraduates (REU) in Cosmology with
Dr. Lloyd Knox, I applied to graduate school in astrophysics. Before I started
the PhD program in the Princeton Astrophysics Department, I completed
Part III of the Mathematical Tripos at the
Institute of Astronomy (IoA) at Cambridge University in England. While in Cambridge I did research with
Dr. Vasily Belokurov
and Dr. Wyn Evans on the structure of the Milky Way’s Stellar Halo.
Early in my PhD at Princeton I worked on a large variety of topics in Astrophysics. My work under
Dr. David Spergel caused me to travel often to the
Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA)
(where I now work) and where I collaborated with many other researchers. I also worked closely with
Dr. Jenny Greene on observational projects
related to Intermediate Mass Black Holes.
In 2019 I started my thesis work with Dr. Eve Ostriker,
though I also worked closely with
Dr. Chang-Goo Kim and
Dr. Jeong-Gyu Kim.
The main guiding goal of my thesis was to try to understand the magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD),
stellar dynamic, and feedback processes involved in star formation in dense environments. I am particularly interested
in the outstanding problem of
Multiple Populations in Globular Star Clusters,
and how feedback from forming stars can act to chemically enrich gas that
subsequently forms more stars, creating chemically distinct but co-natal populations.
In order to tackle this larger goal, I have found that we must first form a much better understanding of how winds from
massive stars interact with the dense environments in which these stars form.
As a Junior Fellow in the Simons Society of Fellows from 2022-2025 I continued work on understanding the dynamics of
WBBs in the presence of background magnetic fields
and the co-evolution of stellar winds with the gas
that is photo-ionized by massive stars in star-forming regions.
My recent and ongoing work focuses on how we can use the intricate understanding of the dynamics of
star-forming regions that I have developed to make predictions for the observed properties of these regions
from current and upcoming observational facilities, such as the
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the
Chandra X-ray Observatory,
and large spectroscopic surveys of gas in nearby galaxies such as the
Local Volume Mapper (LVM) and
PHANGS-MUSE.