I'm an astrophysics PhD candidate at the University of Minnesota working at the intersection of X-ray and Very-High-Energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray astronomy. My research focuses on understanding how supermassive black holes launch and power relativistic jets — using the universe as my laboratory and some of the most sensitive telescopes on Earth and in space as my tools.
I work on multiwavelength observational campaigns, combining data across optical, X-ray, and gamma-ray wavelengths to build a complete physical picture of AGN jet behavior during flaring events in radio galaxies. Radio galaxies are rare VHE emitters — their jets are only weakly Doppler boosted toward us, making them intrinsically difficult to detect at these energies and restricting detections to nearby sources. Yet these same sources have produced some of the most extreme VHE flares on record, making them fascinating laboratories for testing jet physics and particle acceleration and emission scenarios.
A significant part of my work involves gamma-ray data analysis with VERITAS, including retraining Boosted Decision Trees (BDTs) for gamma-hadron separation for a full season of data. This involved working closely with both simulations and real data, optimizing BDT score cuts on known AGN sources, and validating the retrained models on the Crab Nebula as a standard candle. Improved BDT performance directly enhances sensitivity to weak gamma-ray emitters — exactly the kind of sources my science targets. I'm a member of the VERITAS Collaboration and have presented my work at international conferences including ICRC 2023 in Nagoya and HEPRO.
In my research, I work across the full data pipeline — from raw telescope data to spectral modeling to publication-ready results — and I care deeply about communicating science lucidly and contributing meaningfully.
🎙️ I host Stories of Women in Science — a podcast about the human side of doing science, featuring conversations with researchers about their work, their path, and what keeps them going.
💃 Bharatanatyam dancer — kept my inspiration for studying the universe alive!
🌿 Happiest outdoors, whether I'm thinking about jet physics or not.
Open to research collaborations, science communication opportunities, and conversations about the high energy universe.