About Me

I am a Data Scientist and Assistant Astronomer at Space Telescope Science Institute. My research develops new ways to interpret observations of galaxy clusters and other large scale structure. I use machine learning and statistics to tease out complicated patterns in the data that are inaccessible through more traditional means. My physics Ph.D. - Cosmology with Galaxy Cluster Dynamics Using Machine Learning and Forward Modeling - is from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA.

A former teacher, I put that experience to good use at every opportunity. I've traveled to Africa to train Rwandan high school science teachers on delivering memorable lecture demonstrations, and was able to enjoy Kigali's solar eclipse in 2013. More recently, I've been developing lesson plans to teach astronomy at the elementary school level.

My surname has two silent consonants – the T and the P – and rhymes with Chewbacca. The word translates roughly from Kinyarwanda to English as “Don’t Argue with Me."