About me 🦈

Hi! My name’s Bryan, and I’m a 4th year Ph.D. student in astrophysics at UC Berkeley.

My professional interests lie in solving interesting problems using math and machine learning, particularly with computer vision and deep learning. Though my formal academic training is in math, physics, and ML, I find it invigorating to tackle all kinds of problems, from understanding noisy audio to object detection in medical imaging.

At Berkeley, I am working with Dr. Andrew Siemion and Breakthrough Listen, using convolutional neural networks to search for ISM-scintillated narrow-band signals in radio time-frequency data. I created a Python package called setigen that makes it easy to create synthetic narrow-band signals and insert them into real observations for use in evaluating search algorithms and in training computer vision models.

I graduated from Harvard in May 2018, with a B.A. in Astrophysics and Physics, cum laude in field. For my undergraduate thesis project, I worked with Dr. John ZuHone to investigate the effects of magnetic fields on gas dynamics in galaxy cluster mergers using magnetohydrodynamic simulations. This research was published in the Astrophysical Journal, and a preprint is here.

I love to brainstorm and work on a multitude of personal projects. Some highlights are MotivateMeBot, a Twitter bot that makes motivational images every day, and blossom, a Python package that simulates the evolution of a population of organisms.

Outside of research and personal projects, I enjoy perfume making and music production. I love sharks and basically everything about the ocean!