I'm an astrophysicist who uses the tools of optical astronomy and data science to study minor planets throughout the solar system, with a special focus on the region beyond Neptune. The trans-Neptunian solar system -- which includes the Kuiper Belt, the scattered disk, and exotic distant populations like Inner Oort Cloud objects -- contains thousands of primordial, icy worlds with a wide range of physical and dynamical properties that collectively form an archaeological remnant of the solar system's early history. To discover and study these populations, we employ state-of-the-art techniques to collect and analyze data from telescopes on the ground and in space. In recent years we have obtained data from the 4-meter Blanco telescope and the 6.5 meter Magellan telscopes in Chile, the Subaru 8.5 meter telescope in Hawai'i, the 2.4 meter MDM telescope at Arizona's Kitt Peak, NASAs New Horizons spacecraft, and -- most recently -- the James Webb Space Telescope. Many of these projects have been led by graduate or undergraduate students. We also seek to understand the solar system's formation and evolution through dynamical modeling and simulations. My research is supported by NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and the Southwest Research Institute.