I am an Assistant Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, working in the Department of Physics.

My work is in high-energy astrophysics, studying black holes and active galactic nuclei with gamma-ray and X-ray telescopes.

We use X-ray and gamma-ray emission from cosmic sources to understand the most powerful particle accelerators in the Universe. We are also developing new instrumentation for the next generation of observatories.

Research topics

Space instrumentation

We are developing X-ray optics and gamma-ray detectors for the next generation of high-energy astrophysics satellite missions.
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High-energy astrophysics

We use X-ray and gamma-ray observations to study cosmic particle accelerators such as relativistic jets and stellar-mass binaries.
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Data analysis & signal processing

We apply advanced data analysis algorithms to a variety of open questions in physics, astrophysics and beyond.
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Research News

Our paper measuring X-ray polarization from a relativistic blazar jet is published!

February 22, 2024
In our exploration of the universe’s most energetic particle accelerators, our research team has measured X-ray polarization from the blazar 1ES 1959+650. Utilizing data obtained from the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) satellite, a telescope capable of capturing X-ray light polarization, we characterized the intensity and configuration of the magnetic field at the point where […]
Cassie wins poster competition!

Cassie wins poster competition!

November 15, 2023
Cassie won the poster competition at the WU Physics Research Symposium. She presented her correlation analysis between infrared point sources in the WISE catalog and X-ray sources in the eROSITA catalog.
Students present at the Undergraduate Research Symposium

Students present at the Undergraduate Research Symposium

October 27, 2023
Charlie Fallon and Grace Mead presented posters on their Summer research at the Washington University Undergraduate Research Symposium today. Charlie’s poster described his simulations of the response of scintillators to optimize the geometry of a compact gamma-ray spectrometer. Grace presented her work on extracting hard X-ray light curves from relativistic jets using data from the […]

VERITAS sees the awakening of a long-dormant blazar

April 1, 2021
The VERITAS Collaboration has issued an Astronomers Telegram to notify other observatories of the bright gamma-ray flux that VERITAS has measured from the blazar H 1426+428. Zach did part of the analysis that led to the announcement. This is a very interesting object with a relativistic jet that is capable of accelerating particles to extreme […]
Zach defends his PhD thesis!

Zach defends his PhD thesis!

December 21, 2020
Congratulations to Zach on the successful defense of his PhD thesis with title “Toward an understanding of high-mass gamma-ray binaries: an investigation using current observatories and the development of a future GeV instrument”!