I am a Fisk-Vanderbilt Bridge Postdoctoral Fellow in the Physics and Astronomy Department of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. My main research focus is on understanding the formation and evolution of the Milky Way, its nearby dwarf galaxies, and other Local Group Galaxies by modeling their galactic chemical evolution (GCE). In particular, I develop GCE models of dwarf galaxies and employ statistical methods to derive stellar accretion and star formation histories of the Milky Way halo and nearby dwarf galaxies. This is done using the chemical abundance ratio distributions (CARDs) of individual stars in these galactic stellar systems. In addition to this work, I seek to derive the stellar mass-dependent nucleosynthetic yields of neutron-capture elements like Strontium and Barium by exploiting the CARDs found in these galactic systems.
I completed my Ph.D. in Astronomy from Columbia University under the advising of Prof. Kathryn Johnston. Previously, I earned my BA in Astrophysics with Honors from Williams College and my MA in Astronomy from Wesleyan University. Before my current position, I spent two years as a postdoc at the Research Center for Galaxies and Cosmology at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) in Shanghai, China to conduct research in Galactic Astronomy.
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In my spare time I enjoy discussing politics, singing karaoke, dancing and listening to hip-hop, R&B and other genres of music, watching anime, and playing flag football.
Basic skills: research (galactic astronomy, data mining, statistical modeling and analysis, machine learning), programming (python, IDL, C, shell), presenting (talks, posters, visuals), theory (focus on "big picture" consistency), general knowledge in astronomy.
