01 — Research
Working at the intersection of computational physics and applied mathematics — building numerical solvers, analysing observational data from the universe's most extreme events.
View Code on GitHub →MSc thesis at Imperial College London, supervised by Prof. Colin Cotter: implemented and compared two numerical methods for the 1D-1V Vlasov-Poisson plasma system in Firedrake, a multistream grid-particle approximation and an independent 2D reference solver, connected by a moment-based comparison pipeline I built using a mesh-immersion technique.
Rather than demonstrating convergence, the thesis characterises where the multistream approximation breaks down: accuracy plateaus around three to four streams and becomes unstable at longer simulation times.
Coursework spanning Advanced Quantum Mechanics, Dirac Notation, General Relativity, Group Theory, and Advanced Probability — building the theoretical foundation for computational research.
Self-directed projects, separate from the supervised MSc thesis work above — computational astrophysics built independently across gravitational waves, exoplanets, stellar surveys, and cosmology.
Gravitational Waves · LIGO
Analysis of the first gravitational wave detection from a binary neutron star merger. Raw strain data, bandpassing, whitening, spectrogram — extracting the chirp signal from instrumental noise. GW170817 was also detected in gamma rays 1.7 seconds later: the first multi-messenger astrophysics event.
Exoplanet Atmospheres · JWST
Built a complete retrieval pipeline on real JWST transmission spectroscopy data. Forward model, chi-squared likelihood, 100×100 grid search over CO₂ and water abundance, posterior landscape. Upgraded to HITRAN molecular line data via RADIS — replacing toy Gaussians with real quantum transitions from the absorption database used by POSEIDON and petitRADTRANS.
Variable Stars · Cepheids
Period-luminosity analysis of Cepheid variable stars in the LMC and Andromeda — reconstructing Henrietta Leavitt's ruler of the universe. Period-finding on real light curves, phase-folding, calibrated distance modulus. The same method that established the universe is expanding.
Exoplanet Characterisation · Kepler
End-to-end characterisation pipeline: radius from transit depth, mass from radial velocity, bulk density, equilibrium temperature. Applied to Kepler-10b (8.35 g/cm³ — denser than iron, surface at 1965K) and Kepler-442b (5.27 g/cm³ — Earth-like density, genuine habitable zone candidate). Validated against published values.
Stellar Spectroscopy · GALAH
Analysis of stellar abundances from the GALAH survey — tracing r-process element enrichment (barium, europium) in metal-poor halo stars. Real FITS spectra across four wavelength arms. The r-process forges heavy elements in neutron star mergers: the same events LIGO detects as gravitational waves.
Stellar Surveys · Gaia
HR diagram, metallicity distributions, proper motion analysis and sky distribution of metal-poor stars from the Gaia catalogue. Probing the ancient stellar population of the Milky Way halo — the oldest stars in the galaxy.
Cosmology · Hubble Tension
Computed the Hubble constant from first principles and explored the dark energy equation of state parameter w. Compared CMB-derived and late-universe measurements — the Hubble tension is one of the most significant open problems in cosmology right now.
Particle Astrophysics
Modelling neutrino detection from a core-collapse supernova — the brief, intense burst that carries 99% of a supernova's energy. Signal above background, detection probability, the physics of why neutrinos arrived from SN1987A three hours before the light.