Welcome to my space!
I’m Zach, an astronomical data scientist researching stellar astrophysics and supporting data archiving for NASA space telescopes.
Zach's Blurbs
About Me
Originally from Chillicothe, Ohio, I earned a BA in Astrophysics from Ohio Wesleyan University and a PhD in Astronomy from the University of Hawaiʻi. I study how stars rotate, stay active, and change over time using telescope observations and computational tools.
Research Interests
Stars leave clues in their changing brightness. I use stellar light curves to measure rotation and magnetic activity, then use those measurements to learn how stars evolve and estimate their ages.
Things I've Been Working On
butterpy — simulating starspots and stellar light curves.
kiauhoku — working with stellar evolution models.
New Rotation Periods from the Kepler Bonus Background Light Curves (2025) — uses machine learning to extract new measurements from refreshed Kepler data, measuring rotation periods for over 32,000 sources, thousands of which are new.