Current Research

I have been working as a graduate student, PhD candidate, in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Montana State University since the end of August, 2005. My advisor is Prof. Kevin Repasky. Some of the current research by those associated with Dr. Repasky and Dr. Carlsten may be found at our group website.

We have built a system to measure concentrations of carbon dioxide in the air. The system is to be deployed above an oil field where carbon dioxide may be injected for long term storage. This is known as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). The system, known as CODDA, is based on a tunable laser diode operating at a center wavelength of 2004nm. We have deployed this instrument again this summer, 2008, at the field site managed by ZERT. The instrument withstood various weather conditions from inch sized hail and to 60MPH wind gusts to nearly 100 degree Fahrenheit temperatures.

Past Research

Plasma Impedance

My work as a Master's student at USU in the ECE Department was with Prof. Charles Swenson. He has many various research projects all with a space emphasis.

I was privileged enough to be a part of a project calibrating an instrument used to plasma impedance in the ionosphere. Two payloads were flown as separate sounding rocket payloads as part of the EQUIS II campaign. I came on to the project after the two instruments had already been flown. I worked to perform a calibration on the captured data. There were some issues with the instruments and they did not function completely as expected but well enough to be able to retrieve data with a known amount of error, less than 5% deviation from theoretical values. In this process I learned about plasma, the space environment, spacecraft engineering and how to build an instrument so it can easily be calibrated. I also learned a lot from interactions Dr. Swenson and I greatly appreciate his assistance and mentoring.

Soil Physics

As an undergraduate student I worked for Prof. Scott B. Jones in the Plant, Soils and Climatology (PSC) Department at USU. While there, I worked with other researchers such as Dr. Dani Or, Dr. Mike Sukop, Dr. David Robinson, and briefly with Dr. Gail Bingham. I conducted research in such field as using Time-Domain Reflectometry (TDR) for measuring soil moisture content and conductivity; using TDR to measure drying grain moisture content; fluid movement through porous media and the effect of capillary forces; fluid movement in porous media in a micro-gravity environment (see also my webpage about Zero Gravity) and many other various topics. The Soil Physics website has more information about the research conducted there and published papers. Dr. Jones was a great example of leadership and in guiding researchers. He also continues to be, for me, an example of hard work and integrity. He also taught me a lot about patience and experimental design.