About

I am currently a Panofsky Fellow in experimental astrophysics at SLAC National Lab, with the goal of building a program to discover the axion using broadband techniques.

Previously, I worked at the University of Washington and the Center for Experimental Nuclear Particle Physics (CENPA), where I searched for dark matter with the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment. This experiment connects me with my early roots in amateur radio, a hobby that first ignited my interest in physics. My path to this point was long and winding, starting with work on various neutrino physics experiments such as LBNE (now DUNE) and T2K, and proceeding to a WIMP dark matter experiment called MiniCLEAN. My graduate work focused on discrete fundamental symmetries at UNC Chapel Hill, where I built an experiment to search for CPT-violation in ortho-positronium. Along the way, I was exposed to various other experimental work in underground labs (Kimballton Underground Research Facility) and at accelerator facilities (CERN, and Triangle Universities Nuclear Lab). Now, I am a post-doc leading data-taking operations for the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment (ADMX), with the aim of discovering axion dark matter. The experiment involves a non-linear combination of quantum electronics, microwave engineering, cryogenics, and high magnetic fields. Dark matter is thought to compose 85% of the matter content of the universe. This research is one piece in my larger goal to understand the composition of the universe, and answer some of the big cosmological questions of modern physics.