October 4, 2023
I am an observational cosmologist broadly interested in astrophysical probes of dark matter, and how the particle properties of of dark matter (its mass, formation mechanism, possible interactions, etc.) affect structure formation in the Universe. To investigate these open questions, I specialize in measuring the abundance and density profiles of dark matter halos by modeling strong gravitational lenses, systems in which the deflection of light around a massive foreground galaxy or galaxy cluster produces multiple images of a distant background source. I have developed several open-source software packages to perform end-to-end modeling and inferences of dark matter properties using these systems that are available on <a href="https://github.com/dangilman" target="_blank">my GitHub</a>. I am interested in developing improved techniques for modeling strong lens systems that will allow us to take full advantage of the thousands of new strong lenses we will discover in the coming decade, and exploring new applications of strong lensing for fundamental physics, including applications to dark matter and the early Universe.