Research

My research focused on the intricate and captivating field of nuclear astrophysics. In particular I worked to understand the role of neutrino flavor transformation in core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe). The computational methods I utilized in my research gave me the skills and knowledge that I now utilize in my non-academic career.

My research background began during my doctoral studies at North Carolina State University under the mentorship of Dr. Carla Fröhlich and Dr. James Kneller. I began my studies by examining the effects of non-standard interactions on neutrino flavor oscillations. This work, along with other advances made in understanding the behavior of neutrinos deep within the core of supernovae led me to begin working on a method to include neutrino flavor change into classical neutrino transport methods. This physics was traditionally ignored in supernova simulations due to the complexity and significant computational challenges involved in implementing it. A full treatment of neutrino evolution and transport would require more computational power than even the Summit or Frontier supercomputers could provide . My thesis work was focused on developing a method capable of self-consistently including flavor change without requiring a fully quantum solution.

At ORNL, my work turned more toward scientific software development, and utilization of high performance computing (HPC) environments. During my post-doc I contributed to the development and validation of the neutrino transport code used in FlashX as part of the ExaStar collaboration. This work gave me significant experience in developing, deploying, and debugging applications in an HPC environment. I also gained valuable skills in optimizing runtime efficiency and introducing shared and distributed memory parallel computing into simulation codes.

My academic journey reflected my dedication to pursuing greater scientific understanding of the cosmos and how we came to be. Throughout my journey I constantly tackled the most difficult challenges I found in pursuit of that understanding. However, my academic trajectory came to a close following my first post doc, when I transitioned into my current occupation as a software engineer.