Our Team

We are a collaborative group of researchers dedicated to gravitational wave astronomy and theoretical astrophysics.

Principal Investigator

Richard O’Shaughnessy — RIT directory · personal homepage

Associate Professor, School of Physics and Astronomy, RIT

Group Members

Postdoctoral Fellows

• Zhenyu Zhu - CCRG Profile - Postdoctoral Research Assistant studying compact stars, dense-matter equations of state, and multimessenger observations.

Former Postdoctoral Fellows

• Erika Holmbeck - Personal Web
• Atul Kedia - Personal Web

Graduate Students

• Patricia McMillin - CCRG Profile - Ph.D. student studying parameter estimation for eccentric binary black-hole systems.
• Rachel Mechum - CCRG Profile - Ph.D. student researching high-mass-ratio binary black holes and their formation and evolution.
• Zoe Rosenberg - CCRG Profile - Ph.D. student studying how supernova-convection assumptions affect binary-black-hole populations.
• Deanna Fernando - Information pending (CCRG profile not found)
• Zainab Mangi - CCRG Profile - Fulbright Ph.D. student studying black-hole dynamics in chaotic three-body systems and gravitational-wave signatures.

Alumni

Notable alumni include:

• Jacob Lange - Personal Site

  Google Scholar - Former CCRG graduate student and gravitational-wave astronomy researcher.

• Daniel Wysocki - Personal Site

  Google Scholar - Research Associate in Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

• Vera Delfavero - CITA Directory

  Google Scholar - Postdoctoral Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics.

• Marko Ristic - Personal Site

  Google Scholar - Schmidt AI Postdoctoral Fellow at UC San Diego.

• Anjali Yelikar - Vanderbilt profile

  Google Scholar - Postdoctoral Scholar in Vanderbilt’s Physics & Astronomy group.

• Kaila Nathaniel - Data scientist at Capital One; RIT Astrophysical Sciences and Technology Ph.D. graduate.
• Katelyn Wagner - RIT Astrophysical Sciences and Technology Ph.D. graduate (2025).
• Aasim Jan - Postdoctoral research fellow at TAPIR, Caltech.
• Askold Vilkha - Ph.D. student and research/teaching assistant at AGH University of Krakow in Poland.

• Muhammad Zeeshan - RIT Astrophysical Sciences and Technology Ph.D. graduate (2026); now a professor in Pakistan. RIT dissertation

  LinkedIn

• Karl Daningburg - RIT Mathematical Modeling Ph.D. graduate (2026).
• Noah Manning - RIT M.S. graduate; now a Ph.D. student at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV).
• Marc Ebiri - RIT Physics M.S. graduate (2026); now a Physics Ph.D. student at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Join Us

We are always looking for motivated students and researchers. If you are interested in joining our group, please see our About page or contact Professor O’Shaughnessy directly.