I'm a PhD candidate in the Department of Physics, working in CITA. I started my PhD work in September of 2015, after graduating with a BSc Hons. in physics and applied math from the Memorial Univeristy of Newfoundland. My supervisor for October 2015-March 2017 was Harald Pfeiffer, and from April 2017 onward is Norman Murray.
Outside of work, I am involved in community volunteering - currently being an active member of the Rotary Club of Toronto Twilight and having done work with the Rotaract Club of Toronto , being the Community Service Director for January 2016-June 2017 and Vice President for July 2017 - June 2018, and being a Captain for TRAILBLAZERS Tandem Cycling Club. I love to practise and learn martial arts, and enjoy playing piano, guitar, and violin, playing video games with friends, watching horror movies, cycling, running, and snowboarding.
I am a person living with Type 1 Diabetes, and would love to hear from fellow disabled academics or persons interested in astrophysics!
My research focuses on binary black holes. I am a member of the Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) collaboration , and in particular study centre of mass motion of binary black holes which leads to post-processing methods for their waveforms. I also work with Aaron Zimmerman on fundamental frequency relations for binary black holes and using this analysis to link numerical relativity to analytic theories such as post-Newtonianism and Self-force.
I help organize the group meetings for Norm's group, which has been nicknamed the RANDOAstro group. If you're on the food rota, please make sure to print off and bring a sign-in sheet for the meal.
Here's a list of papers that have at least been published on arXiv that I have either authored or co-authored:
Compact Binary Waveform Center-of-Mass Corrections
The SXS Collaboration catalog of binary black hole simulations
I lead the TA meetings for these courses and provide support and information for the TAs. The meetings are twice a week, and it's mandatory that all TAs attend one of these meetings.
PHY132 Winter 2017
TA meeting slides:PHY131 Fall 2017
For all courses, assignments and notes will be available on this page, updating weekly as more material becomes finalized. Students - check back frequently! Note that for Jupyter notebooks and code files, it's best to right click and choose "Save link As" - this will download the file itself to your computer instead of opening it in a new window.
Abelard Computer Science 11/12 (ICS3U/ICS4U), 2017-2018
Abelard Advanced Functions 12 (MHF4U), 2019-2020
Abelard Science 7/8, 2019-2020
Abelard Science 9/10 (SNC1D/SNC2D), 2019-2020
Toronto Science Fair Info (2020):
For the 2019-2020 academic year, the Toronto Science Fair for grades 7-12 will be on April 4, with set up on April 3. All students are encouraged to apply, with the project registration deadline being March 4. Some helpful links are below:
Any students interested in working on a project for the science fair are encouraged to come to the school meetings EVERY TUESDAY AND THURSDAY AT 12:30PM in the Math & Science room. Students need to ensure that they are keeping up with the following schedule:
| What to do | When to do it by |
|---|---|
| Select a project question (including what kind of project it is [experiment, innovation, study] and what field!). | Feb 26 |
| Research what else has been done in regards to your question (ie. background information), and submit a report. | March 2 |
| Notify supervising teacher about your hypothesis and variables that you will change in your projects, submit a materials and procedures list. | March 6 |
| Conduct your experiment / do the study. | March 6 - March 23 (March break) |
| Gather data analysis and graphs (ie. what results do you have?). Submit evidence to supervising teacher. | March 27 |
| Write conclusions and submit final report. | April 1 |
| Complete display board to be taken to science fair (look at the requirements on the Toronto Science Fair website for what limits your display has!). | April 2 |
| Set up for Science fair. | April 3 |
| Toronto Science Fair | April 4 |
Competitions in CS for highschool students:
Canadian Computing Challenge -> Register for a CCCGrader account here, see past exams and results here.
American Computer Science League Contests
Important links and references:
How to install and use Python/Anaconda 3 and Spyder/Jupyter , Python tutorials and walkthroughs , Python documentation, MobaXterm download, LaTeX documentation and download, Writing a Report, arXiv, Corr (CS catagory of arXiv), Google Scholar, U of T libraries and catalogue, Problem Solving and algorithm development
Department of Physic's Colloquia, CITA seminars and presentations, MaRS Magazine
I help out with a number of outreach initiatives across CITA, the Dept of Physics, and the Dept of Astronomy and Astrophysics. This includes SUSC, AstroTours , Girls in STEM , and classroom visits plus public talks (either through CITA or through Physics).
Code: freefall.py , projectile.py , collision.py , AngrySpheres_L1.py
Worksheet: Air Cannon Worksheet
Resources: How to install and use Python/Anaconda 3 and Spyder , Python tutorials and walkthroughs