Awards • 2004 Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics, American Physical Society • 2019 Senior Research Award, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville My research group studies how neutron star observations can be used to understand how neutrons and protons interact and how nuclear physics plays a role in astrophysical objects and processes. Recently, we have determined how the equation of state and superfluid nature of dense matter is determined by neutron star observations, showed how tidal deformabilities are modified by strong phase transitions, and combined modern theoretical results on neutron matter and neutron star observations to make predictions for neutron star tidal deformabilities for LIGO.