I utilize observations across the electromagnetic spectrum to study explosive transients and their host galaxy environments. These transients include gamma-ray bursts, fast radio bursts, electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational wave sources, and anything that collides or explodes. I am a co-leader of the Fast and Fortunate FRB Follow-up (F4) collaboration toward observations of FRB sources, and the co-founder and co-PI of the Searches After Gravitational-waves Using ARizona Observatories (SAGUARO) collaboration in pursuit of gravitational wave sources.
Since 2023, I am a proud member of the CHIME/FRB collaboration and co-chair of the Host Galaxies Working Group, along with Tarraneh Eftekhari. Since 2020, I am also a proud member of the ASKAP/CRAFT collaboration. Both FRB experiments are a joy to work with and are providing new FRBs every week!
The main questions my group seeks to answer in our research are:
- What are the energy sources powering these transients?
- What is the nature and composition of material ejected from these sources?
- What types of environments do they explode into?
- What do their host galaxies look like, and what can they tell us about their progenitors?
To aid these efforts, I use a large variety of telescopes spanning radio, optical, near-infrared, and X-ray wavelengths on the ground and in space. My team and I also travel to large, ground-based telescopes such as the 6.5-meter MMT in Arizona and the twin 10-meter Keck telescopes in Hawaii. I also use information from a number of discovery experiments, such as the Advanced Laser Interferometry Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo Observatories to rapidly follow gravitational wave sources and their host galaxies with many of these facilities.