I am a sixth-year graduate student at New Mexico State University pursuing a PhD in astronomy planning to graduate in May 2023. I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and graduated from the University of Utah in 2017 with an Honors B.S. in Physics.
I work with Dr. Jon Holtzman exploring stellar populations within the Milky Way Galaxy. My research interests include galactic formation and evolution, chemical cartography, galactic archaeology, spectroscopy, computational techniques, and survey science. Some of my projects are highlighted below.
Chemical Cartography of the Milky Way
Mapping the Milky Way using the ages and chemical compositions of individual stars is the key to unraveling the history of our Galaxy. In this project, we explore radail and vertical gradients, quantify the distribution functions for age and metallicity, and
explore chemical clock relations across the Milky Way. These results act as critical constraints on galactic evolution models, further constraining which physical processes played a dominant role in the formation of the Milky Way disk.
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Density Modeling of the Milky Way
The star formation history and evolution of the Milky Way disk is imprinted in the ages, positions, and chemical compositions of individual stars. In this project, we use the final data release of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) to derive the intrinsic density distribution of different stellar populations in the Galactic disk as a function of age, metallicity, and alpha-element abundances after carefully considering the survey selection function. We present new measurements for the present-day scale length, scale height, disk flaring, and mass contribution of each stellar population. These results can be used to explore new constraints on the integrated properties of the Milky Way, highlighting the differences between the mass-weighted and light-weighted manifestations of our Galaxy’s characteristics.
MaNGA Stellar Library (MaStar)
I was involved in the creation of the MaNGA Stellar Library (MaStar), an empircal stellar library of over 20,000 stars observed with the same instrument as used in the MaNGA survey. My contribution has been focused on stellar parameter derivation using machine learning techniques.
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Integrated Properties of the Milky Way
The fields of Galactic and extragalactic astronomy are separated by an inherent incongruity in observational techniques. The Milky Way is studied through resolved stellar populations, wherein the ages, kinematics, chemical abundances, and precise distances to millions of individual stars can be determined with great accuracy. External galaxies are observed through integrated light: the cumulative contribution from millions of stars at once. I am interested in studying how the Milky Way's properites manifest themselves in integrated light, gaining a global view of our Galaxy and comparing it to other galaxies observed with IFUs and advanced hydrodynamical simulations.
APOGEE Reduction Specialist
I was the Data Reduction Specialist for the final three years of the SDSS APOGEE survey. I inspected the data quality from both APO and LCO nightly, reduced data, and updated field completion status for survey planning and operations.
