My research interests are multi-disciplinary. I completed my Ph.D. thesis in experimental astrophysics at U.C. Berkeley in 2005. For this work, I co-discovered calorimetric aerogels and developed physical models of the energy-loss and impact crater formation that results from the capture of hypervelocity particles in ultra-low density solids called aerogels. A copy of my thesis can be dowloaded here.

Aerogels were recently used by NASA's Stardust Mission, and I participated in the preliminary analysis of samples from this mission (See Publications).

Currently, I am a U.C. President's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at U.C. San Diego working on a variety of topics in Atmospheric Chemistry and Planetary Science including:

• physics of capture of cometary, interplanetary, and interstellar dust grains in aerogels
• atmospheric chemistry and the use of triple-oxygen isotopic compositions to understand sources and transformations of chemical compounds in Planetary Atmospheres (including Earth's!)
• applications and origins of mass-independent isotopic anomalies in nature

I am also a Co-I on a NASA funded project that is developing an infrared nanoscope for the analysis of extraterrestrial samples such as primitive meteorites, cometary, interplanetary, and interstellar dust grains in the laboratory.