Rice University

University of Michigan

Research Astrophysicist at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

Study the gamma-ray Universe with data collected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor.

NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Research Astrophysicist

I am currently leading the development of the Fermi All-sky Variability Analysis (FAVA), which is a novel approach at detecting long timescale variable sources in gamma-ray data collected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT).  FAVA has proven extremely successful at discovering new flaring sources in high background environments, such as in the plan of the Milkyway Galaxy.  The FAVA program has also placed constraints on the existence of a coincident electromagnetic signal from the groundbreaking announcement of a gravitation wave detection by the The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Work on this analysis framework has including the development of both the core analysis software, written in Python and C, as well as a public data portal written in PHP, Javascript, JQuery, and D3, and hosted at NASA's Fermi Science Support Center.  The FAVA data portal can be found here:

http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc/data/access/lat/FAVA/index.php

In addition to my work on FAVA, I am also contributing to the development and construction of two new instrument prototypes here at NASA Goddard. The first of these instruments is a CubeSat mission called BurstCube, which would help search for the electromagnetic counterpart of the gravitational wave detections made by LIGO. The second is a balloon borne gamma-ray detector called ComPair, a silicon strip detector concept that will study the high-energy Universe in the 0.2-500 MeV energy range.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Research Scientist

My responsibilities as a NASA postdoctoral program (NPP) fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center included the investigation of the high-energy Universe using data collected by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.  I also served as the science coordinator of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) collaboration's gamma-ray burst science group, which gave me the opportunity to work with a diverse group of international collaborators from all over the world.  In this position I led the development of automated tools for the detection of high-energy transient phenomena and helped investigate the origins of high-energy emission from a variety of transient sources.

NASA Postdoctoral Program Research Fellow

I had the privilege of teaching and introductory planetary astronomy course at the University of San Francisco during the fall of 2009. I designed this class to not only introduce students to the field of planetary astronomy, but to also provided them with a solid scientific knowledge base that would help them become independent thinkers that could critically examine the world around them.

University of San Francisco

Lecturer

The focus of my research as a Kavli postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University was the study of the high-energy Universe using data collected by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. This included the development of science tools in the Python and C programming languages to facilitate automated maximum likelihood analysis of transient sources and the rapid dissemination of results and data products to the astrophysics community. This work involved an international scientific collaboration including a team of more than 400 scientists and students at more than 90 universities and laboratories across 12 countries. 

My primary accomplishments include the development of an automated pipeline to analyze gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and other transient phenomena detected by the Fermi-LAT and the publication of several highly cited papers. These include the characterization of previously unseen features in the temporal and spectral properties of GRBs, as well as placing the most stringent constraints to-date on the variations of the speed of light as a function of frequency arising from quantum gravity effects.

Stanford University

Kavli Postdoctoral Fellow

As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, I volunteered as a lecturer with the Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison, located just outside of San Francisco. As my education commitment to the National Science Foundation’s Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship program, I proposed to aid in the development of the Prison University Project’s introductory math and physics curriculum. The coarse on which I worked most closely was Math 50, which prepares students who already hold GEDs for more advanced calculus classes. Although the material covered in Math 50 was less complex than the material I presented in my courses at Berkeley and the University of San Francisco, and the students came from more diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, many of the same basic teaching principles still applied. By encouraging students to discuss their questions openly in the classroom, we promoted an environment where students could talk about common frustrations and tackle challenges together. The Math 50 program has become the introductory course for the entire math curriculum at San Quentin and has proven to be extremely successful at motivating students to enroll in subsequent math classes. The goal of the Prison University Project is to reduce the rate of recidivism by providing students with the skills necessary to obtain meaningful employment and economic stability post-release.

The University Prison Project

Volunteer Lecturer

I had the privilege of teaching several very popular introductory astronomy courses at the University of California, Berkeley during the summers of 2008 and 2009. I designed my classes to not only introduced students to the field of astronomy, but to also provided them with a solid scientific knowledge base that would help them become independent thinkers that could critically examine the world around them. To do this, I ensured that my classroom was an interactive environment that would promote inquiry based learning by actively engaging students in the learning process. This was done by (1) fostering an environment conducive to inquiry and discussion in the classroom, (2) encouraging meta-cognitive behavior through peer instruction and classroom presentations, and (3) stimulating a sense of curiosity and wonder about subjects by demonstrating how they fit into our larger understanding of the Universe. The first two elements allow students to actively participate in the classroom, which helps them recognize what they understand about a topic and what areas need additional attention. I try to accomplish this by having students ask questions and propose solutions as think-pair-share groups, which would encourage student participation and quickly revealed common misconceptions that could be addressed through critical examination. The third element takes advantage of the natural fascination students have with astronomy. I have found that engaging students’ sense of wonder about astrophysical phenomena can be an extremely effective way to stimulate their desire for a deeper understanding of the physical world. Many of these techniques show improved learning outcomes relative to the passive absorption of lecture material and I have made great efforts to incorporate them into my teaching style.

UC Berkeley

Developed image subtraction and neural network algorithms (IDL, C) for the automated detection and classification of supernovae candidates in wide-field optical images for the Supernovae Factory Project.

University of California, Berkeley

Postdoctoral Researcher

The bulk of my research as a National Science Foundation Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow was to study the feasibility of using gamma-ray bursts for cosmological applications using gamma-ray and X-ray data collected by the Swift spacecraft. This work focused on the analysis and visualization of multi-dimensional data sets using the Python and IDL programming languages, including wavelet and Bayesian analysis of time series and spectral data, to study the nature of gamma-ray bursts detected by NASA’s Swift spacecraft. 

This work also included extensive use of ground and space-based optical observation via the Hubble, Keck, and Gemini Telescopes to study the environments in which gamma-ray bursts occur. My primary accomplishments include the characterization of the first comprehensive x-ray and optical observations of gamma-ray burst afterglows by NASA's Swift spacecraft, placing constraints on gamma-ray bursts as standard candles, and one of the first studies addressing gamma-ray burst host galaxy demographics.

National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow

My primary responsibilities as a Graduate Research Assistant at Rice University were to assist in the teaching of undergraduate astronomy and physics classes and to pursue independent research in the area of high-energy astrophysics. 

My teaching experience at Rice University involved leading laboratory sections associated with introductory physics and astronomy classes. My work included guiding students through observing projects at Rice’s on-campus observatory and hosting regular star parties for students and the community. Teaching in these environments was particularly rewarding because they provided opportunities to promote critical thinking and problem-solving skills by encouraging students to think of alternative methods of investigating a particular question.

My research experience at Rice University included the development of maximum likelihood techniques to infer population demographics and correlation robustness from censored data for the analysis of observations made by NASA’s Compton Gamma-ray Observatory. My primary accomplishments included the publications of several highly cited papers and well publicized discoveries in the area of gamma-ray astrophysics.

PHD Student

Helped developed the Rapid Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE) robotic telescopes to facilitate rapid followup of optical counterparts to high-energy supernovae and gamma-ray bursts detected by orbiting spacecraft and quickly disseminate that information to an international community of astronomers. This work included both hardware and software development, including the construction of a rapidly slewing ROTSE-I telescope with 4 telephoto lenses of 11 cm aperture, covering a 16x16 degree field of view, as well as an image processing pipeline in the IDL and C programming languages.

Robotic Transient Search Experiment

Student Researcher

Designed the optics system of the Vortex space shuttle payload (STS-88 and STS-89) to investigate the propagation of a vortex ring through a liquid-gas interface in microgravity. These duties were in completion of the University of Michigan's independent research credit in the department of Aerospace Engineering.

Daniel Kocevski