RESEARCH
My research interests converge on white dwarf stars, the endpoints of stellar evolution for more than 97 percent of all stars in our Galaxy, such as the core of the Cat's Eye Nebula in the Hubble telescope image above. My research uses white dwarf stars as stable clocks. These clocks are so interesting and diverse they can test general relativity, reveal the presence of planets, and allow us to watch stellar evolution on human timescales. I also use stellar pulsations and binary white dwarf systems to determine fundamental parameters of these burnt-out stars.

For all this work, I perform time-series photometry on these stars, making a light curve of how the object's brightness changes with time. My work has chiefly been carried out with the Argos instrument on the 2.1m Otto Struve telescope at the McDonald Observatory in West Texas, where I spend an average of 4 nights a month.


PRESENTATIONS
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Orbital Decay from Gravitational Wave Radiation in a 12.75-min WD+WD Binary
Oct. 2012, Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Seminar, Harvard-Smithsonian CfA

Eight Years On: A Search for Planets Around Isolated White Dwarfs
Jan. 2012, Planets Around Stellar Remnants, Arecibo, Puerto Rico (invited talk)

Recent Work with Low-Mass White Dwarf Stars
Oct. 2011, Stellar Seminar, UT-Austin

A ZZ Ceti Star in the Kepler Field
July 2011, KASC Fourth Workshop, Boulder, CO

Don't Blink: White Dwarf Stars in the Kepler Field
Mar. 2011, Stellar Seminar, UT-Austin

Using White Dwarf Stars to Understand the Future of our Solar System
Mar. 2011, UT POSSE (undergraduate-level presentation), UT-Austin

Two Planets Around NN Serpentis
Nov. 2010, Planets and Life Journal Club, UT-Austin

WD0111+0018: The Runaway Pulsating White Dwarf
Oct. 2010, Stellar Seminar, UT-Austin