I am the Robert A. Millikan Fellow in Physics and Astronomy at Caltech. I work on frontier problems in time-domain astronomy, interferometry, and astronomical (adaptive and active) optics. These currently include the search for sub-minute optical bursts, novel interferometric instruments (and telescopes), and adaptive-optics systems for extremely large telescopes. I have an incipient interest in stellar astrophysics (compact binaries and period bouncers).

I enjoy thinking deeply about problems that sit between astrophysics, instrumentation, and observing technique, especially when there is an opportunity to find a new way of making a difficult measurement. If I don’t understand something, it lingers on my mind. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Galison’s How Experiments End shaped how I think about science and experimentation. I care about understanding not only the astrophysics, but also how instruments, measurements, and experiments actually work.1 I enjoy learning and mentoring.

I grew up on St. Thomas Street in Horta, Barcelona,2 and received my undergraduate degree from the Technical University of Catalonia, where I was the PI of an ESA REXUS/BEXUS experiment. I later received my Ph.D. from Stanford University, where I worked at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and played a key role in the development and commissioning of its Active Optics. Much of my work since then has continued to move between understanding and building astronomical instruments and using them to explore new astrophysical regimes.

I have a hard time ignoring things that seem fixable: my instinct is usually to try to do something about it.

1 “In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.” Pasteur (1854).

2 St. Thomas the Apostle (“Doubting Thomas”) famously refused to believe until he had seen for himself: a useful motto for an astronomer.