om - research

I employ computer vision, agent-based modeling, network science, and machine learning to study animal behavior and ecology. I am a Ph.D candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder Computer Science Department, and I work on understanding firefly flash patterns in the Peleg Lab and with Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. I wear many hats: data scientist, software engineer, entomologist, physicist, mentor, and avid learner. My main research focus is the signaling behavior of bioluminescent Lampyridae beetles, commonly known as fireflies.

Below are some word clouds from the abstracts of my published and ongoing projects

published

Wordcloud of my work in classifying firefly signals

Embracing firefly flash pattern variability with data-driven species classification
Wordcloud of my work in creating a dataset of firefly flash patterns

Crowdsourced dataset of firefly trajectories obtained by automated stereo calibration of 360-degree cameras
Wordcloud of my work in understanding firefly periodicity

Emergent periodicity in the collective synchronous flashing of fireflies

media

Fleeting Fireflies - The Conversation

Fleeting Fireflies Illuminate Colorado Summer Nights
-The Conversation
CU Firefly Blinking Research - CPR

CU Firefly Blinking Research
-Colorado Public Radio
Searching Colorado’s Little-Known Fireflies - CU Today

Searching Colorado’s Little-Known Fireflies
-CU Boulder Today

ongoing

Wordcloud of my work in Colorado firefly behavior

Towards an understanding of Colorado firefly populations with spatiotemporal analysis of flash behavior

Wordcloud of my work in synchronization dynamics

Synchronization dynamics of interacting firefly - LED systems

Wordcloud of my work documenting individual variability and how it contributes to and benefits from group synchronization

Individual variability within synchronous collectives