Joseph Farah is an astrophysicist and Ph.D. student at UC Santa Barbara with a decade of experience in VLBI imaging, supernova physics, and strong-field gravity. He contributed to the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration’s first images of black holes—serving as lead author on a key Sgr A* paper—and co-led the discovery of the first chirping supernova, revealing Lense-Thirring precession driven by a millisecond magnetar. His work blends observational radio astronomy, VLBI imaging tool development (notably contributions to eht-imaging), and Bayesian and machine-learning methods for astrophysical inference. A two-time Apker finalist, Breakthrough Prize co-recipient, and NSF GRFP awardee, he will join UC Berkeley as a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow to pursue precision probes of compact objects via superluminous supernovae and the photon ring. An uncommon strength is combining hands-on imaging-software improvements with high-impact theoretical and observational discoveries.
10 years of coding experience
Physics B.S., Astrophysics, Physics B.S., Astrophysics at UMass Boston
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Astrophysics, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Astrophysics at UC Santa Barbara
Imaging, analysis, and simulation software for radio interferometry
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Contributions:29 commits, 16 PRs, 7 comments in 2 years 6 months
Contributions summary:Joseph primarily focused on enhancing the `comparisons.py` script within the repository, adding new functionalities, and fixing existing bugs. Their contributions involved adding a function, fixing an iteration error, and implementing matplotlib aesthetics. Furthermore, the user incorporated color cycles, comments, and conditional graph display features, improving the visualization aspects of the project's core functionality.
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Joseph Farah - Ph.D. Student at Las Cumbres Observatory