My present research focuses on studying the impact of magnetic fields on both gas accretion onto supermassive black holes and AGN feedback - with the view to chart these effects on host galaxies. Though magnetic fields themselves are well-understood, coupling them into hydrodynamics introduces a large degree of non-linear effects at scales which are typically too small to consider in such large-scale simulations. These effects must be characterised if we hope to better simulate galaxy formation and evolution in an explicit cosmological context. I do this by approaching the problem from a computational perspective - primarily making use of the RAMSES code.
The problem of forward-modelling simulations to direct observables is also of great interest to me, particularly the production and study of mock JWST spectra of simulated high-redshift and epoch-of-reionization galaxies such as those from the SPHINX simulations. I use these to understand, test and derive new frameworks and diagnostics for quantities which are not directly observable at high-redshifts, such as the Lyman Continuum escape fraction.
I'm a British-New-Zealander DPhil student working with Professors Julien Devriendt and Adrianne Slyz. I am also the Graduate Teaching and Research Scholar in Physics at Oriel College. Before coming to Oxford, I received my masters in natural sciences from Cambridge, where my thesis focused on optimizing the computation of dynamical perturbations in large-scale dark matter perturbation theory. This work was completed with Dr. Zvonimir Vlah and Professor Anthony Challinor.