Welcome

I am a software developer with expertise in backend web development, machine learning, cryptocurrency/blockchain and cybersecurity.

I studied Astronomy and I was working towards completing my PhD at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. I met my wife while in graduate school, and we are now living in Kitchener, Ontario with our daughter and cat.

I like to create rogue-like video games, experiment with electronics, and I consider myself a recreational mathematician.

I also like making mead, baking bread and creating desserts.

About Me

I grew in Richmond Hill, Ontario and later Oak Ridges, Ontario, which are both north of Toronto, Ontario. For about year beginning in the Fall of 2002 I lived and worked in Victoria, British Columbia. I then moved out east to Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2004 to persue my MSc in Astronomy. After living there for two years, I moved to Kingston, Ontario to persue my PhD in Astronomy. I then moved to the Kitchener-Waterloo area in 2011 to be with my wife as she finishes her PhD.

Education

Degree Year Institution Supervisor
PhD (Astronomy) Withdrawn Queen's University Dr. Martin Duncan
MSc (Astronomy) 2006 Saint Mary's University Dr. Joseph Hahn
Honours BSc (Astrophysics) 2002 University of Toronto Dr. Norman Murray

Interests

I like to play Badmington and I have recently been introduced to Squash. In quieter moments I enjoy curling up with a good book or watching a great movie. In the past I concentrated solely on science fiction novels, mainly the old classics (e.g. Asimov, Clarke, etc.) but I have begun to read other genres.

Mead

I have a blog about my mead making activities.

Personal Blog

I have a personal blog about my mathematical and programming interests.

Research

The majority of my early research in Astronomy has been observational in nature, and the bulk of that is concentrated in Stellar Astronomy. In terms of observational experience, I have been involved with three surveys: A Short-Period Binary Survey (Prof. Rucinski, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada), a Shell Star and a Nearby Star Survey (Prof. Garrison, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada).

More recently I have worked on numerical studies. For my Honours Thesis, I looked at gravitationally scattered dust/planetessimals as a possible source for extrasolar meteorites (Prof. Murray, CITA, Toronto, Ontario).

In another study, I simulated observations with ALMA and I looked at the distinguishability of some simple star formation models (Prof. Johnstone, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada).

I worked for a year modelling PSFs for the Thirty Meter Telescope Project and detection probabilities of high-redshift galaxies, as well as assessing potential Astronomical sites for the TMT (Prof. Carlberg, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada).

I studied β Pictoris with secular evolutions models for my MSc (Prof. Hahn, Saint Mary's Unversity, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada).

For my PhD I was studying the formation of the giant planets (Jupiter and Saturn) in our Solar system, in particular how a gas disk impacted the interaction between gravitational forces from planetary embryos and the planetessimal disk from which they formed. This lead to a publication of our initial results, which I was extending by investigating how the interaction of multiple planetary embryos modulated our analysis for a single planetary embryo.

With regards to my own personal research, I am working on a dynamical study of planetary systems.

I also made a few guest appearances on the radio show Astrarium created by a fellow graduate student James Silvester for CFRC 101.9 FM at Queen's University.

For a full account of my research activities, please see my CV.

For my work experience, please see my Resume.

Notebook

I also have a notebook on my current research.

Projects

These are the current projects that I am working on at the moment.

Past Projects

Contact

Here is how you can contact me:

contact [at] chriscapobianco [dot] com