I work on supernova remnants (SNRs) and related topics like particle acceleration in shock waves, the life cycle of dust and gas in the interstellar medium, and the connection of supernova and SNRs to their progenitor systems. My Ph.D. career overlapped almost perfectly with Spitzer's cryogenic lifetime, so much of my work in that time (mid to late 2000's) was spent characterizing emission from young SNRs in the mid-IR, both photometrically and spectroscopically. The primary emission mechanism in this band is warm interstellar dust, heated to IR-emitting temperatures in the hot post-shock environment. This involved a significant amount of work in modeling the emission from various types of dust grains, some of which I haven't touched since my thesis! The image to the right is Kepler's SNR, the remnant of the supernova of 1604 C.E. This image shows the remnant in infrared (red), optical (yellow), and X-ray (green and blue) light.

After Spitzer's cryo lifetime ended in 2009, I transitioned to the high-energy world of X-ray Astronomy. As an NPP Fellow and Research Scientist at NASA Goddard, I continued my research using instruments like Chandra, XMM-Newton, and Suzaku. The image to the left is also Kepler's SNR, but entirely in X-rays from Chandra. I am or have been involved in the science working groups of several X-ray missions, including ATHENA (Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics, an ESA-led mission scheduled for launch in 2028), Lynx (a US mission under study for review by the 2020 decadal survey for launch in the early to mid-2030's), AXIS (a probe-class mission concept being studied for review by the 2020 decadal survey for launch in the mid 2020's), and Hitomi (formerly Astro-H; a JAXA-led mission that launched in February of 2016 before its untimely demise roughly a month later). With the launch of JWST imminent, I'm looking forward to getting back to my IR roots, and furthering the multi-wavelength study of these young, dynamic objects.

You can find an up to date list of my refereed publications on ADS