Ashley.
I am a heliophysicist.
I am developing this site to collate all my information - papers, code, bio, etc. I work at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and my pronouns are she/her/their.
Hi, my name is
Brief bio.
I am currently a scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. To rewind, as an undergrad at Duke University, I majored in physics and minored in theater studies. After graduating, I worked in the Duke Medical Center running psychiatric clinical trials on schizoprenia, fibromyalgia, and drug addiction (long story). I interned at Goddard, where I discovered an interest in Earth’s magnetosphere, and haven’t really looked back. I worked at Goddard for 1 year in the energetic particles lab while my boss tried to convince me to go back to school. He succeeded and I started classes at nearby Catholic University while continuing my research at Goddard. I defended my thesis November 2019, just a few short months before Covid (womp womp). I was a NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) fellow, then a research scientist through Catholic University at Goddard before being hired by NASA in September 2022. I still enjoy doing theater through the Goddard theater group, as well as whatever hobby has caught my attention that particular month - currently kayaking, reading, and leather working. I still believe in work life balance, aided in part by my at-home demands of my spouse and a needy but beautiful cat.
Photo on the left is from a solar eclipse community event in 2017.
Experience - Work in Progress
I am currently a civil servant at NASA. Some hardware projects include:
- CuSP, one of the CubeSats flying on Artemis
- MERiT, a solid state telescope flying on HERMES (Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite) for the Lunar Gateway.
- AGILE, an innovative new CubeSat flying on GenSat. AGILE uses pulse shape discrimination for the first time in a space application.
My research interests currently involve wave particle interactions with energetic electrons in Earth’s outer radiation belt. I study pitch angle distributions, relativistic and ultra relativistic electrons, microbursts, and sometimes dip my toes into protons and the inner belt.
After my postdoc, I was hired as a research scientist at CUA, continuing work at the NASA Goddard energetic particles lab.
NPP postdoc awarded to study the evolution of pitch angle distributions in Earth’s radiation belts. I started my postdoc just before
the start of Covid lockdowns. The MERiT HERMES instrument and AGILE development continues, although with obvious delays.
During this time, I was a graduate student at the Catholic University of America studying under Dr. Shrikanth Kanekal. My research covered several topics, including hardware and data analysis. Analysis topics included using protons as tracers of Earth’s magnetic field to track the location of the South Atlantic Anomaly, quantifying the contriution of electron microbursts to global loss, and studying pitch angle distributions of relativistic electrons.
I was part of the core team for developing and testing MERiT on CeREs. This included using simulations to determine optimal shielding, field of view, and binning algorithms for incoming particles, source testing and calibration of individual detectors as well as the full instrument. CeREs launched in 2018.
After my internship, I worked at Goddard for one year before starting grad school. I continued work on the MERiT CeREs CubeSat,
starting work on optimization techniques for instrument design.
SESI Intern at NASA GSFC. I started work on the MERiT CeREs CubeSat (then under a different name!), learning how to bin particles
on flight for data compression. This period of time convinced me that I was interested in pursuing physics research as a career,
and I found funding to continue on my research path.
After graduation, I continued my research in the High Energy Physics lab studying neutrinos whilst deciding on my future in physics.
During this time, I was fully employed in Duke’s Psychiatry department, running clinical trials on schizophrenia and fibromylagia.
Researcher in the High Energy Physics lab studying neutrinos. My senior honors thesis involved using the Super Kamiokande
neutrino detector to distinguish between neutrinos and antineutrinos.