People

Our group is close-knit and highly active. Student researchers have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of computational astrophysics research projects on cutting-edge topics.

Group alumni have been highly successful.  In 2024, group alum Logan Cabral (B.S. '22, M.S. '23) was one of a handful of students nationwide across all disciplines to receive a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship -- the second student or alum from our group to receive this prestigious honor, after Gabriel Casabona (M.S. '19)! In 2022, group member Mckenzie Ferrari was named a Goldwater scholar and one year later, the nationwide winner of the ITA Sally Ride STEM award. In 2021, group member Khanak Bhargava (M.S. '21) accepted a five-year graduate fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University. In 2018,  group alumnus Suoqing Ji (M.S. '13) accepted the highly-prestigious Sherman Fairchild Prize Fellowship in theoretical astrophysics at Caltech, and DAAD RISE alum Matthias Aegenhaester won the Utrecht University Thesis Prize. In 2014, group member Jillian Bolinger (B.S. '14, M.S. '16) was one of only sixty undergraduate students selected nationwide to participate in the Council of Undergraduate Research's "Posters on the Hill Event." In 2012, group member Peter Jumper (B.S. '13) was one of seven physics undergraduate students nationally recognized by the American Physical Society as a finalist for the highly-prestigious Apker Prize, for his research conducted in our group on the brown dwarf desert. Peter was also offered a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, which he declined in order to accept a Connaught International Fellowship from the University of Toronto. 

Additionally, our group excels at communicating our science to broader audiences. Three of our students: Jack Sullivan, Mckenzie Ferrari, and Kevin Jumper have all taken home the first place prize in our campus's three-minute thesis (3MT) competition. 

Masters and bachelors students have been admitted to and received fellowship offers from physics and astronomy Ph.D. programs at Columbia University, Northwestern University, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins University, University of Toronto, University of Maryland College Park, Stanford University, University of Virginia, Ohio State University, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Texas at Austin, University of California Santa Barbara, Stony Brook University, Arizona State University, Georgia Tech, and Clemson University, among many others, or have pursued successful careers in private industry and education.

Current Group Members

Postdocs 

Tabassum Tanvir (Fall '23 - )


Ph.D. Graduate Students

Parth Sastry (Summer '23 - )


M.S. Graduate Students

Divyanshu Singh (Spring '23 - )

Krut Patel (Spring '23 - )

Miriya Jones (Fall '22 - )

Caleb Derochea (Fall '22 -)


B.S. Undergraduate Students

Amy Melhelm (Summer '22 - )


High School Students

Devraj Dhupar (Summer '23 - )


Recent Collaborators

Gabriela Aznar-Siguán (ETH Zurich)

Ray Bair (Argonne National Laboratory)

Alexey Bobrick (Technion University)

Rosanne Di Stefano (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

Anshu Dubey (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

Enrique García-Berro (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya)

Or Graur (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

Carlo Graziani (University of Chicago)

James Guillochon (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

Richard Klein (LLNL / University of California at Berkeley)

Kaitlin Kratter (University of Arizona)

Don Lamb (University of Chicago)

Dongwook Lee (University of California, Santa Cruz)

Pablo Lorén-Aguilar (University of Exeter)

Chris McKee (University of California at Berkeley)

Stella Offner (University of Texas Austin)

Hagai Perets (Technion University)

Noam Soker (Technion University)

James Steiner (MIT)

Frank Timmes (Arizona State University)

Dean Townsley (University of Alabama)

Petros Tzeferacos (University of Rochester)

Daan van Rossum (Radboud University)

Hiroya Yamaguchi (Kyoto University)

Yossef Zenati (Johns Hopkins University)


Group Alumni


Ph.D. Graduate Student Alumni

Rahul Kashyap (UMass Dartmouth Distinguished Doctoral Fellow '17 →  Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics Prize Postdoc → Postdoc w/ Davide Radice, Penn State University → Assistant Professor, IIT Bombay)


M.S. Graduate Student Alumni

Mark Ugalino (M.S. Physics '23  → Physics Ph.D. Program, University of Maryland College Park  )

Daniel Kosakowski (M.S. Physics '23   → Mathematics Ph.D. Program, Texas A&M University)

Prabodha Mudalige (M.S. Physics '23 → Physics Ph.D. Program, University of Tennessee Knoxville )

Rishabh Solanki (M.S. Physics '23 →Physics Ph.D. Program, North Carolina State University 

Veronica Silva (M.S. Physics '23)

Vrutant Mehta (M.S. Physics '23)

Abdullah Al-Shaffi (M.S. Physics '22  → Physics Ph.D. Program, University of Colorado Boulder )

Niranjan Roy (M.S. Physics '21 → Physics Ph.D. Program, University of Connecticut)

Khanak Bhargava (M.S. Physics '21 → Physics Ph.D. Program, Stony Brook University, Institute for Advanced Computational Science Graduate Fellow)

Sudarshan Neopane (M.S. Physics '21  → Physics Ph.D. Program, University of Tennessee Knoxville)

Asia Haque (M.S. Physics '21)

Richard Charette (M.S. Physics '21 → Physics Ph.D. Program, University of New Hampshire)

Vishal Tiwari (M.S. Physics '20 → Physics Ph.D. Program, Georgia Institute of Technology)

Gabriel Casabona (M.S. Physics '19 → Physics and Astronomy Ph.D. Program, Northwestern University, Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow)

Pritom Mozumdar (M.S. Physics '18 → Physics Ph.D. Program, UC Davis )

Tazkera Haque (M.S. Physics '17 →  Physics Ph.D. Program, UT Arlington)

Jillian Bolinger (M.S. Physics '16 → Naval Undersea Warfare Center)

Pranav Dave (M.S. Physics '16 → Physics Ph.D. Program, Georgia Institute of Technology) 

Kathryn St. Laurent (M.S. Physics '15 → Space Telescope Science Institute)

Brian Pinault (M.S. Physics '15 → Public Program Specialist, Kitt Peak National Observatory)

Suoqing Ji (M.S. Physics '13 → Paxton Fellow, Physics Ph.D. Program, UCSB →  Sherman Fairchild Prize Fellowship, Caltech → Associate Professor, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory → Professor, Fudan University)

Avinash Kumar (M.S. Physics '11 → Physics Ph.D. Program, University of Maryland - College Park → Postdoc, Caltech Optical Imaging Laboratory)

David Falta (M.S. Physics '11 → Harvard Extension School)

Pradip Basnet (M.S. ’10 → Physics Ph.D. Program, University of Georgia Athens → Postdoc, Georgia Tech → Full-Time Lecturer, Virginia Wesleyan University)

Sashi Poudel (M.S. ’10 → Physics Ph.D. Program, Worcester Polytechnic Institute → Diagnostic Imaging Physicist, Landauer Medical Physics)

Rakesh Ginjupalli (M.S. ’10 → Engineer at IBM Global Services)


Undergraduate Student Alumni

Alexis Petty (B.S. Physics '24)

John Gallagher (UCLA B.S. Physics '24 → University of Colorado Boulder)

Mckenzie Ferrari (B.S. Physics '23 → University of Chicago Astronomy & Astrophysics PhD Student)

Jack Sullivan (B.S. Physics '23 → University of Connecticut Physics & Astronomy PhD Student)

Tyson George (B.S. Physics '22 → UMass Dartmouth B.S./M.S. Physics Student → Virginia Tech Physics PhD Student )

Alex Correira (B.S. Physics '22 → UMass Dartmouth B.S./M.S. Physics Student → Syracuse University Physics PhD Student)

Logan Cabral (B.S. Physics '22 → UMass Dartmouth B.S./M.S. Physics Student → University of Chicago Geophysics PhD Student)

Ian Gifford (B.S. Physics '22 → UMass Dartmouth B.S./M.S. Physics Student → University of Miami Marine Sciences PhD Student)

Jack MacDonald (B.S. Physics '22 → UMass Dartmouth B.S./M.S. Physics Student)

William Holman (B.S. Physics '21 → Veolia North America) 

Binayyak Roy (St. Stephens College, New Delhi, India, Summer '20  → Ph.D. Physics, Clemson University )

Michelle Barnes (B.S. Mathematics '20 → Business Analyst, Open Signal)

James Lunney (B.S. Physics '20)

Emily Dors (B.S. Physics '19)

Thuong Nguyen (B.S. Physics '19)

Eliza Miley (B.S. Physics '17 → UMass Dartmouth M.S. Physics Student → Naval Undersea Warfare Center)

Chris Byrohl (DAAD RISE Student, Summer '15, Georg-August-Universität → Masters Student UC Berkeley →Ph.D. Student, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Garching → Postdoc, University of Heidelberg)

Matthew Wise (OUR Research Student, B.S. Physics '17 →  MorphoTrust USA)

Martin Lellep (DAAD RISE Student, Summer '14, Phillips-Universität Marburg → Masters Student University of Edinburgh → Ph.D. Student Phillips-Universität Marburg)

Tiffany Ferreira (B.S. Physics '14  → Distinguished Doctoral Fellow, EAS Ph.D. Program, UMass Dartmouth)

Jillian Bolinger (NASA Space Grant Scholar, B.S. Physics '14 → M.S. Physics '16, UMass Dartmouth)

Jean Pierre (LSAMP Scholar, Spring '13 - Spring '14 → Dell EMC)

Casey Newell (NASA Space Grant Scholar, Summer '13)

Matthias Aengenheyster (DAAD RISE Intern Summer '13, Jacobs University, Germany → Masters Student, Utretcht University, Graduate School of Natural Science Thesis Award → Ph.D. Student, Oxford University)

Kevin Jumper (B.S. Physics '13 → Astronomy Ph.D. Program, University of Texas at Austin)

Peter Jumper (B.S. Physics '13, APS Apker Prize Finalist → Connaught International Fellow, Astronomy & Astrophysics Ph.D. Program, University of Toronto)

Pascal Cremer (DAAD RISE Student '12, Universität Bonn → CHESS Fellow, University of Cambridge Masters Program in Applied Mathematics → Ph.D. Student →  Research Associate, Universität Bonn → Software Engineer, Google)

Jan Behrends (DAAD RISE Student '11, Freie Universität Berlin → Ph.D. Student, Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems → Fellow of Darwin College, University of Cambridge)

Shivangi Prasad (Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur Student '11 → Physics Ph.D. Program, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign)

Joseph Collins (B.S. Physics Transfer → Colorado State University - Fort Collins → Academic Computing, Colorado State University)

Justin McKennon (NASA Space Grant Scholar, B.S. EECE '12 → Principal Scientist at Electro Magnetic Applications, Inc.)

Deivid Ribeiro (B.S. Physics Transfer → Physics B.S. '13, Brown University → Columbia University Dean's Fellow, Astronomy Ph.D. Program → Postdoc, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota)

(Top) Fisher Group, fall of 2017. From left-to-right: Gabriel Casabona, Michelle Barnes, Robert Fisher, Veronica Silva, Pritom Mozumdar.

(Bottom) Fisher Group, summer of 2013. From left-to-right: Robert Fisher, Suoqing Ji, Peter Jumper, Jillian Bolinger, Matthias Aengenheyster, Rahul Kashyup, Casey Newell, Kevin Jumper, and Jean Pierre.

High School Student Alumni

Pearl Mallick (Summer '21  →  Yale University )

Noah Chartier (Summer '15 → Physics B.S. Program, University of Rochester)