About Me

I am a graduate student pursuing a PhD in Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics with Dr. Paul Wilson in the Computational Nuclear Engineering Research Group, CNERG at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My doctoral research is designed to train me in advanced computational methods and their applications in promoting nuclear nonproliferation and security. My post-graduation intention is to continue a career in scientific research for the U.S. government. To this end, I am an intern at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the nuclear nonproliferation division, mentored by Dr. Ken Dayman, while I finish my doctorate.

Previous research experience includes a wide breadth of fundamental physics research and specific nuclear engineering applications. For two years, I participated in experimental nuclear astrophysics research measuring reaction rates relevant to neutron star binary systems. This included experimental work operating a novel nuclear detection system (GAGDET) and nuclear data analysis with Dr. Chris Wrede’s research group. For a summer I participated in a study abroad program at the University of Glasgow (guided by Dr. Andy Buckley) where I completed data analysis on particle physics data collected at CERN for the ATLAS collaboration with implications for quantum chromodynamics.

By utilizing machine learning, underlying patterns in data can be discovered. This has potential application in anomaly detection for special nuclear material (SNM) transfers, an important objective in nuclear nonproliferation. Broadly, my proposed thesis topic is focused on exploring how semi-supervised machine learning can help with nuclear nonproliferation data streams. Data streams in this domain can be persistent, with large volumes unlabeled relative to the events of interest. Therefore, labeling sufficient data for traditional supervised methods could have high domain and/or computational costs. To address this, several semi-supervised machine learning methods are explored to alleviate the labeling cost while still utilizing a breadth of nuclear data. Demonstration of these methods are conducted using measurements collected as part of the Multi-Informatics for Nuclear Operating Scenarios (MINOS) at ORNL.

If you are interested in my CV, you can find that information in the link above. If you’re interested in my past publications, seeing some of my work, or contacting me, you can find those below.