Research
Selected writeups from coursework, independent study, and collaboration in astrophysics.
Developing New Computational Tools to Identify the Most Extreme Outflows in the Universe
Built an automated Python pipeline that isolates the fastest known extremely high velocity quasar outflows (surrounding supermassive black holes, at > 20% the speed of light, of which only two are known) from Lyman-alpha forest spectral data contamination by exploiting physical variability timescales across multi-epoch SDSS spectra. Designed a pipeline integrating a redshift-invariant autoencoder (SpenderQ) as a fallback for reconstructing the intrinsic quasar continuum, scaled to process thousands of spectra at a time. Successfully used this pipeline to identify the fastest outflow in the universe autonomously. Awarded a fully-funded travel grant from NASA-SURA, sponsored by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, to present at the 16th International Laser Interferometer Space Antenna Symposium.
Assessing the Risk of Low Earth Orbit Overcrowding Due to the Accelerating Private Satellite Industry
A computational modeling study of orbital debris accumulation risk as commercial satellite constellations scale, examining how current collision-avoidance and de-orbit policy holds up against projected launch patterns.
Quantum Computing as a Means of Drastically Improving Efficiency of Deep Space Missions
A research report examining where classical computation supports deep-space exploration — planetary classification, orbital calculation, and signal degradation over interplanetary distances — and evaluating quantum optimization algorithms, QKD, and entanglement-based teleportation as replacements for classical algorithms.