The focus of my research is understanding the nature of dark matter and dark energy.
I study dark matter by searching for the debris produced by dark matter particles annihilating in space. Some of that debris might include gamma rays and I use the data collected by Fermi LAT, a gamma-ray space based telescope, to search for this signal.
Gravitational lensing, via the image distortion of far away sources due to intervening matter (both dark and baryonic) in the line of sight toward the observer, is one of the techniques employed to trace dark matter and, by the measurement of growth of structure, to determine the properties of dark energy. The upcoming Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will revolutionize our understanding of dark matter and dark energy. As a member of LSST-DESC, I plan to use these data to study the dark Universe.