Researcher Summary
I'm an astronomer with expertise in high cadence observations, primarily from the Kepler and TESS space telescopes. With this data I study all transient phenomena, from asteroids and comets in the solar system, to supernovae in distant galaxies. For supernovae I look at the first moments after explosion to try and understand what stars and star systems actually produced the supernova. Understanding how supernovae occur is crucial for understanding the universe through cosmology.
Alongside studying known supernovae, I lead a project to search for the fastest explosions in the universe. This project searches the enormous amount of high cadence image data made available by Kepler and TESS. Anomaly detection and event characterisation are key for this project.
In order to have the best data possible, I have developed tools in data reduction and data calibration. Current community Python packages I have developed are TESSreduce, for TESS data reduction and Calibrimbore, for instrument calibration. I am also the Science PI of the SynDiff project to forward model TESS data using ground based observations.
