204 Rue de L'Hôpital
Montréal, QC H2Y1V8
+1 504 706-5772
MON - FRI,8AM - 7PM
carterrhea93@gmail.com
carterrhea@astro.umontreal.ca
Carter Rhea
Graduate Student in Observational Astrophysics
- BORN : September 7, 1993
I am currently a graduate student at the Université de Montréal studying Extra-Galactic Astrophysics. On this site you will be able to find my current and past projects as well as relevant information about me! My wife, Catherine, and I live in the old port of Montréal with our two adorable cats (plenty of photos to come!). We love skating and strolling around historic Montréal. In addition to studying Astronomy at UdeM (l'Université de Montréal), I study French, Spanish, and Russian.
After my first stint at as graduate student at Duke University in computational mechanics and scientific computing, I returned to astrophysics by joining Dr. Julie Hlavacek-Larrondo’s high-energy astrophysics team at l’Université de Montréal. Immersing myself in the astronomy life in Montreal, I participate in the astronomy on tap events as both a volunteer and a speaker, attend inter-university seminars, and have taken advantage of several evenings at the Observatory at Mont Megantic.
I recently had the opportunity to write a blog post for the Chandra X-ray Observatory on our discovery of a massive cooling flow uninhibited by AGN feedback.
My research focuses on bringing machine learning techniques to both optical and X-ray spectroscopy. A large portion of my thesis working focus on developing machine learning applications for the Canada-France-Hawai'i Telescope which can be found at https://github.com/sitelle-signals/Pamplemousse.
I worked as a front-end web developper at SFL for 6 months. During this time, I focused on my web-programming skills and working in groups with varying experience.
I am completing a three month internship at the CFHT working with Dr. Laurie Rousseau-Nepton. We are working on integrating machine learning techniques into the data analysis of the CFHT instrument Sitelle.
As a graduate student, I focus on the dynamics of distant galaxy clusters undergoing extreme starburst activity. I am also working on a data reduction and analysis pipeline for archival Chandra data. My currently available work can be found at AstroTools Github. Another important piece of my recent research has been the creation of an archive of X-ray Galaxy Cluster using a reduction and analysis pipeline I created called LEMUR -- named after my cat . You can find the site here. My thesis focuses on the galaxy cluster SpARCS 1049+56 and the application of machine learning techniques to the field of observational astronomy.
I participated in several projects studying fracture mechanics and developing software for use in civil engineering applications. My master's thesis was a computational pipeline to effectively communicate between micro and macro scale physical processes in porous media fluid flow.
My PhD work consists of two primary projects -- both of which are related to machine learning in astronomy. The first project is to create a suite of machine learning tools tailored to the instrument SITELLE on the Canada-France-Hawai'i telescope. The second project is the application of machine learning techniques to X-ray spectral analysis.
My primary master's thesis is an X-ray study of the incredible galaxy cluster SpARCS1049+56 and the application of machine learning techniques to spectroscopy in observational astronomy. I also work on developing open-source astrophysics tools that can be found on my github page.
Completed a MSc in Computational Mechanics and Scientific Computing in the Department of Civil Engineering. In addition to completing a master's thesis, I participated in the publication of an article on particulate raft fracture mechanics. My studies at Duke centered on software development for finite element methods in fluid/fracture mechanics.
As an undergraduate, I completed a Bachelor's of Science in Pure Mathematics with a minor in Geology and a Bachelor's of Arts in Astronomy with a minor in Russian Studies. I was fortunate enough to work with Dr. George Chartas and co-author a paper on microlensing events and quasars.
I have been using Python for several years primarily for data anaylsis and as a wrapper language. Python is my go-to tool for any programming challenge.
My time at Duke was spent immersed in C++; from my master's thesis to research to parallel computing classes, C++ served as my key ally.
J'étudie à l'Université de Montréal et alors je parle français chaque jour! J'ai besoin d'améliorer toujours mais j'avais beaucoup des opportunités à présenter en français. Je suis toujours heureux à pratiquer :)
À mi me encanta la lenguage espanol. Busco las opportunidades para practicar!
Когда я был младше, я учил русский язык в течении семи лет. Но, к сожалению, сейчас мне трудно разговаривать по-русски. При этом я всегда рад практиковать!
