BIO
I am a Professor in the Department of Physics and Engineering at West Chester University, where I started as an Assistant Professor in 2008. Since that time, I have taught classes in physics, engineering, and astronomy. My research focuses on astronomical instrumentation. I am also a long-term Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania.
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I received my Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Hawai'i in 2002. During my time there I worked on instruments for a number of different observatories, including the 8-meter Gemini telescope (above center) at the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island and the Department of Defense AEOS telescope atop Haleakala on Maui. I also had my first opportunity to teach a lecture class in graduate school, the first step toward a teaching-focused career in academia. I was then a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, where besides continuing to teach at the undergraduate level, my research focus shifted from optical and infrared telescopes in Hawaii to millimeter-wave telescopes in Chile for studying the Cosmic Microwave Background (the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the Simons Observatory). I have had the good fortune to work with many talented fellow faculty and both undergraduate and graduate students on these endeavors.
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