Overview
Use observational tools to measure the expansion history of the universe. Trying to answer big questions like 'what is dark energy?'.
Current Duke Appointments & Affiliations
Professor of Physics
·
2026 - Present
Physics,
Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
·
2025 - Present
Pierre R. Lamond Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Pratt School of Engineering
Recent Scholarly Works
Forward-modelling Milky Way Cepheids: selection effects and physical priors in the Gaia – HST calibration
Journal article Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · July 6, 2026 AbstractThe advent of high-precision Gaia parallaxes for Milky Way Cepheids enables per cent-level calibration of the local distance ladder and the Hubble constant H0. We revisit the Milky Way Cepheid cal ... Full text CiteStill accelerating: type Ia supernova cosmology is robust to host galaxy age evolution
Journal article Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · July 1, 2026 Type Ia supernovae are a cornerstone of modern cosmology, providing first evidence for cosmic acceleration and new tests of dark energy. Son et al. (S25) claim a strong redshift evolution in standardized supernova luminosities driven by supernova progenito ... Full text CiteThe Extinction Law in Type Ia Supernovae Hosts from Background Galaxy Measurements: Toward a 1% Determination of H0
Journal article Astrophysical Journal · July 1, 2026 In the most precise distance ladder determination of H0, the observed near-infrared fluxes of Cepheids are corrected for dust, assuming that the extinction law in large, star-forming spiral hosts of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) is similar to the ... Full text CiteRecent Grants
Research in High Energy Physics at Duke University
ResearchCo Investigator · Awarded by Department of Energy · 2013 - 2029A Roman Project Infrastructure Team to Support Cosmological Measurements with Type Ia Supernovae
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Aeronautics and Space Administration · 2023 - 2028Big Data and the Biggest Tension in Cosmology
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by David & Lucile Packard Foundation · 2019 - 2027View All Grants
Education
Johns Hopkins University ·
2013
Ph.D.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology ·
2007
B.S.