Andrew West

Andrew West

Research Associate

Areas of Interest: Black Hole Accretion, High Energy Astrophysics, Time domain astrophysics, Computational Astrophysics

Andrew received his PhD from Washington University in St. Louis in Spring 2023 under Prof. Henric Krawczynski. His work focuses on combining large scale numerical simulations of black hole accretion disks with cutting edge raytracing algorithms to reproduce the spectro-polarimetric and time domain behaviors of stellar mass black holes during state transitions and explain the origin of quasiperiodic oscillations. He has also worked extensively on ground control software and flight software for balloon-borne X-ray telescopes. At Steward Observatory, Andrew is working with Prof. Dan Marrone and Astronomer CK Chan on the analysis of VLBI data from the Event Horizon Telescope to probe fundamental questions about the high gravity regime created by supermassive black holes.