Research

Supernovae​

Supernovae are powerful explosions that arise from a handful of stellar origins, like the deaths of massive stars ("core-collapse" supernovae) or the thermonuclear detonation of white dwarfs ("Type Ia" supernovae). A handful of studies have shown that the host galaxy properties (like stellar mass, star formation rate, metallicity) between different classes of supernovae are distinct - meaning, the progenitors of these different kinds of supernovae are likely distinct and require different environmental conditions for their formation. With this in mind, we can perform more detailed studies of supernovae host galaxies to better understand their progenitor formation pathways.

 

Because different kinds of supernovae trace different host properties, we can also use host galaxies to correctly classify supernovae. This is something that will be especially useful with the Vera Rubin Observatory - which will detect tens of thousands of transients nightly! Since we won't be able to spectroscopically classify all of these transients (we do not have the resources for that!)  and the majority of these events will be faint and only have sparse photometry, host galaxy science will become increasingly imperative for population studies of various transient and supernovae classes. My current research is taking on this big task and thinking of all the ways we can use hosts during the Rubin-era! My first step was creating a tool called FrankenBlast, which determines the hosts and host galaxy properties of transients very quickly (< 15 minutes per object).

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Short Gamma-Ray Bursts​

Short GRBs are some of the most luminous extra-galactic explosions in the universe. They only emit gamma-rays for less than 2 seconds and have very quickly fading afterglows, but in that time, they release a great amount of energy. Studying their host galaxies is important because we can determine the redshifts of these events, which set their energy scales, and learn about the environmental factors that their progenitor systems can form in. From the LIGO/Virgo detected GW170817 event, a binary neutron star merger which had an electromagnetic counterpart in the form of a short GRB, we now know that short GRBs are derived from neutron star mergers and are connected to these kinds of events occurring in the local universe. With this in mind, we can also use the host galaxies of short GRBs to better predict the kinds of galaxies that can host gravitational wave detected events and inform follow-up searches.

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​The Broad-band Repository for Investigating Gamma-ray Burst Host Traits (BRIGHT) is the largest short GRB host galaxy catalogue to date. On this website, we include all available observations for a short GRB host and its inferred stellar population properties. Data is publicly available!

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Telescopes

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My research depends on the constant flow of data from large telescopes. I currently collect a majority of data from the MMT Observatory in Arizona, Magellan Observatory in Chile, and  FLWO telescopes.

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I am the PI for host observations in the MMT program (semesters 21B, 22A, 22B, 23A, 24A, 24B, 25A, 25B) and have been a PI for the classical Keck program for Northwestern transient observers (semesters 22B, 23A).