My research interests center around compact astrophysical objects, particularly neutron stars, and using them to understand physics in extreme environments. These research activities are currently separated into three major areas:
Radio pulsars are renowned for being useful in probing all kinds of phenomena by timing their pulses. I use pulsars in all kinds of orbits to study orbital dynamics with high timing precision. By properly characterizing gravitational effects, we can ultimately derive intrinsic properties of the systems in question, such as the neutron-star mass, which yields high-impact constraints on possible nuclear processes within their interiors that remain theoretically elusive. For a short review on this topic, feel free to check out our contribution for the Astro2020 U. S. Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Since November 2016, I helped build and commission two "backend" instruments for the telescope built in support of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). This work, a wonderful and lively mix of hardware and software development, aims to enable CHIME for timing observations of Northern-hemisphere pulsars, and blind searches of "fast radio bursts" (FRBs). FRBs represent a new and emerging phenomenon whose origin remains a complete mystery. While they are extremely hard to detect, the properties of the CHIME telescope (a telescope that constantly acquires data of a large patch of sky at any instant in time) make it superior for catching FRBs.
Given their clock-like nature, radio pulsars are also useful for detecting gravitational waves. We are using an ensemble of millisecond pulsars (i.e., pulsars that spin with periods on the order of milliseconds) to detect gravitational waves from distant, supermassive black hole binary systems. This project, the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), uses the 300-m Arecibo Observatory, 100-m Green Bank Telescope, and CHIME to make high-precision measurements for detecting gravitational waves within the next 5 years.