Cosmological inflation is the most successful physical theory describing the earliest phases of the Universe's expansion, and is a key proving ground for studies investigating the interface between the two pillars of modern physics: quantum mechanics and general relativity.

Working under Professor Nishant Agarwal in the Theoretical Cosmology Group at UMass Lowell, I am studying the dynamics of quantum field theories in curved spacetimes, with a particular focus on cosmological inflationary scenarios.

Image Source: Particle Data Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Birds, bats, and insects are fast, efficient, and maneuverable flyers, so understanding how they have optimized unsteady aerodynamic flight directly inspires modern research efforts into micro-aerial vehicles and flapping wing aerodynamics.

Working under Professor David Willis and Professor Milo DiPaola at UMass Lowell, I developed a system that, in the NVIDIA ISAAC Gym reinforcement learning environment, trains a "digital twin" of a cyber-physical system to control wing stroke angle and stroke plane angle to discover fast and efficient flapping techniques.

Left: Initializing the simulated agent's training with different initial velocities yielded different flapping strategies. Lower initial velocities (red) encouraged a higher stroke plane angle, while faster initial velocities (blue) encouraged a shallower stroke plane angle.