AstroMusers

My research group at WashU, AstroMusers, works to advance our understanding of dark matter and exoplanets. Publications from the group members are available here. I believe mentorship is the key to fun and productive pathways in research and academia. As such, I strive to build a strong, welcoming group culture at AstroMusers.

AstroMusers includes postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates at WashU. AstroMusers also hosts undergraduates and high school students from the Greater St. Louis region through our AstroScholarSTL program, as well as a number of associate (non-WashU) members from peer universities who work with me on problems within the scope of my research program. Therefore, the weekly AstroMusers meetings, held at 2 pm on Fridays, are held in a hybrid format: in-person at Compton Hall and on Zoom.

Our other group activities include group trips to conferences, including regular attendance in AAS meetings, Mid-American Regional Astrophysics Conferences (MARAC), and Great Lakes Exoplanet Area Meetings (GLEAM), gatherings during postdoc and graduate student appreciation days, and social events held jointly with my TMC mentees.

The name of the group highlights the fundamental astronomical problems that inspire my muse, as well as the passion and curiosity that fuel our observational, computational, and theoretical research program. While I was planning to start as a faculty member, I wanted to avoid naming my research group after myself, as is typically done in the field, and settled on AstroMusers after some thought, which I hope reflects our curiosity-first approach to astrophysics research and unique path to advancing the field.

Beyond its publication footprint, a major product of AstroMusers is ExoCore, which is part of NASA's Open Science curriculum and supports the expansion of open science efforts in exoplanet research.