I am a second-year graduate student at The Ohio State University studying Astronomy and Astrophysics. I am originally from a small town in Indiana called Hartford City, but I moved to central Pennsylvania for my undergraduate degrees. I graduated from Penn State in May of 2023 with a B.S. in Astronomy and Astrophysics, a B.S. in Physics, and a minor in Mathematics. While at Penn State, I worked under Dr. Abe Falcone in the High Energy Astrophysics Detector and Instrumentation (HEADI) Lab. My work primarily focused on the characterization of the Novel Speedster-EXD550 Hybrid CMOS Detectors to be used on the NASA funded BlackCAT CubeSat. To learn more about my undergraduate work please check out my honors thesis!
My first project at Ohio State uses the plethora of data from ASAS-SN to study the low surface brightness (LSB) universe with my advisors: Drs. Michael Tucker, Chris Kochanek, and Kris Stanek. ASAS-SN has been operating for over a decade now, and has accumulated hundreds of hours worth of exposure time across the night sky. By stacking these images, we can look for LSB galaxies that are usually difficult to find. These galaxies provide information about which theories of dark matter work on smaller scales.
Outside of Astronomy, I enjoy a variety of outdoor activities like hiking, skiing, and tennis. I also love playing card games with friends, and logging movies on my Letterboxd account. On any given fall weekend you can find me rooting for the two greatest teams in football history: The Green Bay Packers and the Penn State Nittany Lions.