Research
I work on various aspects of gravitational-wave physics and astronomy. Broadly, my interests span four areas:
Strong-field tests of gravity
Gravitational waves let us probe general relativity in truly extreme regimes—relativistic motions and near-horizon gravity—where even tiny departures would be revealing. I analyze current and next-generation GW catalogs to test whether gravity behaves exactly as GR predicts. In parallel, I look for signs that some “black holes” could be exotic compact objects—BH look-alikes with different underlying physics—by searching for subtle, coherent anomalies in waveforms and population trends. Together, these studies constrain deviations from GR and from genuine black-hole behavior using the cumulative power of many events.
Multi-messenger astronomy
Multi-messenger astronomy pairs gravitational waves with electromagnetic signals to reveal source physics from independent angles. I focus on neutron-star mergers (and NS–BH) that power gamma-ray bursts, afterglows, and kilonovae, using joint GW–EM data to constrain ejecta, geometry, and rates. A central question is the origin of the heaviest elements: GW170817 showed that mergers can forge r-process nuclei like gold, but whether they dominate cosmic production remains open. By combining GW catalogs with EM populations and tailored observing strategies, I test competing scenarios and map how much each channel contributes to the heavy-element budget.
Stochastic GW background
The stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB) is the blended hum of countless distant mergers—BBH, BNS, and NSBH—that are individually too faint to resolve but rich in cosmological and population information. I develop methods to extract this deeply buried signal from detector noise, building and benchmarking pipelines (including mock-data challenges) to push sensitivity and reliability. With SGWB measurements we can probe how binary-black-hole rates evolve with redshift, test formation channels and their histories, and link GW astrophysics to broader questions in cosmology and stellar evolution—a discovery that many expect to be the next major milestone in GW astronomy.
GW data analysis
In precision gravitational-wave astronomy, modeling the detector noise is as crucial as modeling the underlying physics—otherwise our inferences can be seriously biased. I work on understanding noise in GW interferometers and its impact on key science results, developing methods to denoise data and building statistical models that better capture the data’s non-idealities. I also design AI-powered, real-time noise-regression tools for interferometers to improve low-latency analyses and overall detector sensitivity.