Join Us in San Diego!

I am currently looking for a graduate student and/or a postdoctoral researcher to join my group starting in fall of 2026 (or earlier). I have a wide variety of projects available on topics ranging from Type Ia supernovae to core-collapse supernovae to multimessenger follow-up. Please note that this does not extend to supernova cosmology, gravitational-wave parameter estimation, or machine-learning methodology. In particular, my collaborators and I are working to get two large programs, PASSTA and the Treasure TROVE, off the ground. If you have experience with time-domain and multimessenger alerts, optical and infrared observations and data reduction, or astronomical software infrastructure and machine learning, I would be especially happy to hear from you, although the only requirements are interest and willingness to learn. More details on the projects and how to apply below.

PASSTA

The Public AEON Spectroscopic Survey for Transient Astronomy (PASSTA) is a new collaboration to obtain optical and near-infrared spectral series of nearby transients using the 0.4 m to 8 m telescopes of the Astronomical Events Observatory Network (AEON), in order to understand their progenitor systems, circumstellar environments, and explosion physics. Early data on the youngest supernovae of all types have revolutionized transient astronomy, with flash spectroscopy signaling circumstellar interaction, and early light-curve bumps and high-velocity spectral features of unknown origin. Despite today’s time-domain surveys yielding dozens of high-quality, very early discoveries per year, our interpretations are limited by sparse follow-up data sets, often with a single early spectrum. Earlier, higher-cadence, and longer-baseline observations will allow for transformational insights into the progenitor stars and explosion physics of all types of transients.

Treasure TROVE

The Treasure TROVE, a Tool for Rapid Object Vetting and Examination, will be a public and open-source platform that will allow users to rapidly and automatically vet potential electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational-wave, neutrino, and other multimessenger events, including their localization within each event, host galaxy information, forced photometry, and association with sources in minor planet, point source, multiwavelength, and AGN catalogs. We currently have a website and API-enabled platform and are in the process of beta testing our tool with outside users. We will soon publicly vet all candidate counterparts to multimessenger events, providing “scores” that enable users to prioritize follow up and classification of the most likely multi-messenger counterparts. This system will help the community overcome a major hurdle in multimessenger follow up, directly linking counterparts to the large volume of available archival information and helping the large number of teams involved in multimessenger follow up optimally use their telescope resources.

Apply

Prospective graduate students should apply for the Astronomy & Astrophysics PhD Program and list me as a potential advisor. I am in the process of officially posting an ad for the postdoc position on the AAS Job Register, which will have application instructions. In either case, there is no need to contact me ahead of time. In your application, please detail your scientific interests (see Research), skills relevant to the projects above, and any previous experience in time-domain astronomy.

I would also welcome the opportunity to host graduate or postdoctoral fellows who are interested in time-domain science. If you are considering listing UCSD as a host institution for your fellowship application, feel free to email me (see About Me for contact info). UCSD also hosts the Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, for which I would be happy to nominate qualified time-domain astronomers.

If you are a UCSD undergraduate looking for research experience, please fill out our department's undergraduate research application. I don't have any research projects for undergraduates at this time, but I will consult those applications if one becomes available. Unfortunately, I cannot accept any other undergraduate or high-school students, but I hope to see you in my classes one day!