I’m an Astronomy graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin working in Keith Hawkins’s research group where I study the chemo-dynamics of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy across all spatial scales. More broadly, my research interests range from galactic dynamics, stellar spectroscopy, binaries, and exoplanetary systems.
I graduated with a B.S. in Astrophysics from UCLA where I worked with Prof. Smadar Naoz on stellar and compact object dynamics in the Galactic Center. I also had the opportunity to work with Prof. Lauren Weiss at the University of Notre Dame to search for stellar companions in Kepler circumbinary systems.
Chemo-dynamics combines stellar chemistry with stellar motions in order to reconstruct how the Milky Way formed and evolved. I am using this approach to understand the Milky Way's evolution from the local level (binaries and triples) to galaxy-wide structures (kinematic patterns and metallicity variations).
Circumbinary systems are systems with planets orbiting both stars in a binary. We used new spectra of two circumbinary systems, Kepler-34 and Kepler-35, to search for long-period stellar companions.
Natal kicks are velocity impulses received by neutron stars or black holes at birth. We simulated their effect on a population of massive stars and binaries near the Galactic Center.