Simulating a Sky Survey to Measure What It Missed
Using a synthetic dataset to test detection limits and quantify what the telescope missed.
Selected work
Case studies in detection, simulation, and statistics
Real problems on real data, from a nationwide education study to a simulation of a NASA infrared survey.
Do New Libraries Help Children Read?
Every US library opening from 2008 to 2024, 528 checked individually, and reading scores for nearly every school district. A pre-registered test, with access measured in walking minutes. Preliminary findings.
Interactive demo: How Far Is the Library? →
Finding Repeated Signals in Noisy Time-Series Data: Revealing How Fast an Asteroid Spins
Error-riddled brightness measurements can still hint at a pattern. I measured the rotation period of an asteroid to within 0.02% of an independent solution.
Interactive demo: Find the Spin →
One Rock or Two? Letting Physical Shape Models Compete
Three physical shape models compete to explain one asteroid’s changing brightness. The two-body model comes out ahead, and radar imaging agrees.
An Asteroid’s Shape, Recovered From Brightness Alone
An asteroid’s proportions and spin direction, recovered from how its brightness changed over 68 years, with every competing answer shown.
Finding Out What an Asteroid Is Made Of From Spectra
Reading what a surface is made of from its spectrum, with each step checked against published results for hundreds of asteroids.
Detecting Weak Signal in Noisy Images
Finding and measuring faint objects in noisy images, with calibration and error bars measured from the images themselves. Tested on telescope images of an asteroid.