Bio

I am a Portuguese-American astrophysicist working primarily in the field of high-energy (HE) astrophysics. I have also worked as a space and data scientist in the private R&D sector.

I was recently a post-doctoral researcher at the Laboratory of the Universe and Particles, of Montpellier, part of the French National Institute for Nuclear Physics and Particle Physics (IN2P3).  Previously, I held a Marie Curie Fellowship, granted by the European Commission, at the same laboratory.  The IN2P3 is a division of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).  Before this, I was a post-doctoral researcher in the Astrophysics Service of the French Alternative Energies & Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) near Paris.

Research focus and interests
My most notable work has been on the H.E.S.S. Galactic Plane Survey, the first comprehensive survey of the Milky Way in very-high-energy (VHE) gamma rays, and for discovering and studying numerous sources of VHE gamma-ray emission in the Galaxy, with a focus on better understanding supernova remnants, pulsar wind nebulae, and unidentified sources.  I have also published research in the fields of HE gamma-ray astrophysics, multi-messenger neutrino astrophysics, magnetospheric space physics, and the development of energetic particle detectors for nanosatellite missions.  I am the author of over 140 articles published in peer-reviewed journals (h-index 45) and have given more than 10 invited oral presentations at international conferences and workshops.

Education and industry experience
I attended Boston University, where I received my B.A. in Astronomy and Physics cum laude in 2002.  Before pursuing a graduate degree, I was a staff Scientist at Physical Sciences, Inc. (Andover, Massachusetts), working in applied R&D under contract from NASA, the Japanese space agency JAXA, the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), and the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).  I then received my M.Sc. in Astrophysics at Utrecht University in the The Netherlands in 2007 and Ph.D. in Physics magna cum laude at the University of Heidelberg in Germany in 2011, performing research under Prof. Werner Hofmann at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics.

 

Project management and leadership
I have held multiple scientific leadership roles in the international H.E.S.S. Collaboration since 2010, most recently serving as the Deputy Convener of the Galactic science Working Group and a member of the Executive Board (2013-2016).  I was also one of the longest serving members of the H.E.S.S. Observation Committee (2010-2015), responsible for allocating observing time for the H.E.S.S. telescope array in Namibia.  I am currently a member of the H.E.S.S. Publication Board and individual Editorial Boards therein.

 

I am an active member (2012-present) of the CTA Consortium which is designing and building the next-generation array of VHE gamma-ray telescopes in both Chile and Spain.  I am the Co-Editor of two Key Science Programs (KSPs), the CTA Galactic Plane Survey KSP and the Cosmic-ray PeVatron KSP.  Both are main components of CTA’s Technical Design Review (TDR) and establish the first scientific targets of the CTA Observatory, currently under construction.  I was also an Associate Member (2014-2017) of the Fermi-LAT Collaboration, which operates NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and was earlier a member of the IceCube Collaboration (2006-2007), which operates the U.S. National Science Foundation’s IceCube neutrino telescope in Antarctica.