His research focuses on experimental laser-plasma physics in the areas of laboratory astrophysics and high-energy density physics. He has led a small team of researchers and students to design and build a kilojoule class laser at UCLA, which has recently produced the very first laser-driven collisionless shocks in the Large Plasma Device (LAPD). Highlights of this research include the direct observation of collisionless Larmor coupling between the laser and the LAPD plasma, the first observation of electromagnetic ion-ion beam instabilities responsible for parallel shock formation, and measurements of the three-dimensional structure and evolution of collisionless shocks in high-repetition rate laser experiments.