Intro
Places to find me: on top of Lizard's Mouth Rock, stargazing; at the Las Cumbres Observatory on a Friday night, working on a publication; at the gym early in the morning, starting the day off right; walking along Goleta Beach Park, working on a new art piece; in a nook at the Davidson Library, banging my head against some problem.
My Work
Picture: The imaging team of the EHT, which made the famous first picture of a black hole, standing with an early version of the image at the 2018 EHT Imaging Workshop. I am second from the left on the right side of the image.
Curriculum Vitae
I am currently working to get my Ph.D. at my UC Santa Barbara as an NSF Fellow , studying supernova, dark energy, and cosmology with Dr. Andy Howell. I apply bleeding-edge VLBI techniques to resolvable supernovae to characterize their ejecta and probe the uncertainties of supernova physics.
As a collaborator on the Event Horizon Telescope project, I helped take the first image of a black hole. I work primarily on imaging (turning the data we collect from observations into images), modeling (making assumptions about the form of the data and finding models that best fit it), and theory (developing the physics behind our understanding of the shadow of a black hole). I also participate in observations, multiwavelength coverage analysis, weather prediction at EHT sites, and general software development.
I was a key contributor to the second image of a black hole--the first image of the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. I led one of the 10 papers published as part of the results package on May 12, 2022, establishing a new method for obtaining high-frame-rate movies of Sgr A*.
For my work on the EHT, I was named a co-recipient of the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, along with the EHT Collaboration.
About
Currently, I am a Ph.D. student working under an NSF Fellowship at UC Santa Barbara on supernova and dark energy. I apply bleeding-edge VLBI techniques to resolvable supernovae to characterize their ejecta and probe the uncertainties of supernova physics.
I was on the team that took the first image of a black hole, at the time the first and only undergraduate. I received a B.S. in physics at the University of Massachusetts Boston (class of 2021). I have co-authored 32 journal publications, 3 technical publications, and 4 conference publications as of May 12, 2022; given many talks on my work with the Event Horizon Telescope; and have developed new ways to model and image the black hole shadow in Kerr. I've had the privilege of working under the legendary Melissa Franklin and the brilliant Michael Johnson.
I am an NSF Fellow and a 2019 Barry M. Goldwater Scholar, the first from my alma mater UMass Boston, and was named the winner of the 2021 LeRoy Apker Award (as well as finishing in the final 7 in 2020), the highest honor given to undergraduate physics researchers in the United States. Selected awards include: the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award, the NSF Diamond Achievement Award, the Northrop-Grumman Scholarship, and the Alton J. Brann Endowed Scholarship. Fellowships I have received include the Smithsonian Graduate Fellowship (2x) and the Oracle Fellowship (2x). I was named one of Boston's annual 25 Under 25.
For fun, I enjoy making art, quarter-mile drag racing, exercising, and working on unnecessary tech projects. But more than anything else, I enjoy a good laugh.
Supernova
Source: Chandra
Type Ia (SNe) are used as standard candles for measupernovaesuring distances across the cosmos. The unique property that lets them be used so is their adherence to the Chandrasekhar limit, which places a hard limit on how large a white dwarf can be before it must go supernova. As a result, these supernova are thought to all have the same intrinsic brightness, and therefore when observed, communicate information about their distance.
However, recently, some Type Ia supernova have seemingly exceeded this limit, throwing our understanding of these objects--and our estimates of size within the entire Universe--into question.
I have begun my Ph.D. at UC Santa Barbara in Fall 2021, working with Dr. Andy Howell and the Global Supernova Project, trying to shed light on tihs cosmic mystery.
Black holes
Source: The first image of a black hole. With the EHT Collaboration, I helped produce this image of the supermassive black hole in the elliptical galaxy Messier 87.
When observed against an illuminating background screen, black holes cast a unique shadow on the accreting material around them. The shape and size of this shadow correlates to the spin, inclination, and mass of the black hole, and allows for an extremely unique test of general relativity in the strong gravity regime.
Unfortunately, the shadow of a black hole is frustratingly small, even for the biggest black holes on the sky. However, with very-long-baseline interferometery (VLBI) and special imaging algorithms, we can produce radio wavelength images of this shadow and reveal the singularity.
While I worked at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory under Michael Johnson, I was a member of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration that took the famous first image of M87. During that time, I authored and co-authored many publications addressing black hole physics and the imaging problem. I continued my work and in 2022 helped produce the second image of a black hole--the first of the black hole in the center of the Milky Way.
Cosmology
This page under construction.
Contact
Institution: Las Cumbres Observatory
Address: 6740 Cortona Dr, Goleta, CA 93117
Work contact info: jfarah AT lco DOT global
Email: josephfarah AT ucsb DOT edu
Swing by for a cup of Joe, or send me an email!
Elements
Text
This is bold and this is strong. This is italic and this is emphasized.
This is superscript text and this is subscript text.
This is underlined and this is code: for (;;) { ... }
. Finally, this is a link.
Heading Level 2
Heading Level 3
Heading Level 4
Heading Level 5
Heading Level 6
Blockquote
Fringilla nisl. Donec accumsan interdum nisi, quis tincidunt felis sagittis eget tempus euismod. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus vestibulum. Blandit adipiscing eu felis iaculis volutpat ac adipiscing accumsan faucibus. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus lorem ipsum dolor sit amet nullam adipiscing eu felis.
Preformatted
i = 0;
while (!deck.isInOrder()) {
print 'Iteration ' + i;
deck.shuffle();
i++;
}
print 'It took ' + i + ' iterations to sort the deck.';
Lists
Unordered
- Dolor pulvinar etiam.
- Sagittis adipiscing.
- Felis enim feugiat.
Alternate
- Dolor pulvinar etiam.
- Sagittis adipiscing.
- Felis enim feugiat.
Ordered
- Dolor pulvinar etiam.
- Etiam vel felis viverra.
- Felis enim feugiat.
- Dolor pulvinar etiam.
- Etiam vel felis lorem.
- Felis enim et feugiat.
Icons
Actions
Table
Default
Name |
Description |
Price |
Item One |
Ante turpis integer aliquet porttitor. |
29.99 |
Item Two |
Vis ac commodo adipiscing arcu aliquet. |
19.99 |
Item Three |
Morbi faucibus arcu accumsan lorem. |
29.99 |
Item Four |
Vitae integer tempus condimentum. |
19.99 |
Item Five |
Ante turpis integer aliquet porttitor. |
29.99 |
|
100.00 |
Alternate
Name |
Description |
Price |
Item One |
Ante turpis integer aliquet porttitor. |
29.99 |
Item Two |
Vis ac commodo adipiscing arcu aliquet. |
19.99 |
Item Three |
Morbi faucibus arcu accumsan lorem. |
29.99 |
Item Four |
Vitae integer tempus condimentum. |
19.99 |
Item Five |
Ante turpis integer aliquet porttitor. |
29.99 |
|
100.00 |