My research focuses on applying concepts from physics to education. Standardized tests have yielded incredible amounts of data that we can analyze to try to predict student achievement and its correlation to variables such as poverty or ethnicity. What we have done is look at students’ progression through school as a dynamic flow, with students representing the “atoms” of our “fluid”. From there, we can derive Fokker-Planck equations, steady states, and Markovian models to help us explore the data and try to improve our policies on education.
Assistant Instructor – PHY 101L
University of Texas at Austin (Sept. 2008 – present)
Teaching Assistant – PHY 101L
University of Texas at Austin (Sept. 2007 – May 2008)
Summer GRE – Computational Astrophysics
PI – Dr. Dinshaw Balsara
University of Notre Dame (2006)
B.S. – Physics/Honors Mathematics, University of Notre Dame (2007)
Balsara, Bendinelli, Tilley, Massari, & Howk (2008). Simulating anisotropic thermal conduction in supernova remnants – II. Implications for the interstellar medium. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 386, pp 642-656.