I study the dynamic sky: transient and explosive phenomena, such as supernovae, that change on human timescales. I am most interested in how compact objects like neutron stars and black holes provide the engines to power some of the rarest and most powerful events in the Universe.

This work uses wide-field surveys that image large fractions of the sky every night to discover new sources. My group follows up these sources with large telescopes to better understand the properties of rare explosive events and the extreme physical conditions that they probe.

I hope to understand which stars produce the brightest supernovae (and why), which explosive events produce essential heavy elements, and what happens to a star when it gets too close to a supermassive black hole.