NOTE: This website is no longer maintained as of Summer 2023 – migrating to https://hustonm.github.io/about/

I’m a PhD candidate in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State. I do research in the field of SETI and exoplanet-related topics. I’m also very interested in science communication and write as part of the Astrobites collaboration and as a freelancer.

I am on the job market for 2023!

CV (up to date for February 2023)

Research

SETI

The main focus for my thesis research is on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, advised by Jason Wright. I am currently working on a project with Sofia Sheikh and the Characterizing Atmospheric Technosignatures (CATS) collaboration to establish baselines for technosignature searches. We have compiled a list of technologies on Earth that may be detectable from space and are working to calculate the distance at which our telescopes could detect these signatures. I also maintain the SETI ADS bibgroup, help compile SETI.news, and coauthor yearly “SETI in 20xx” review papers with my advisor.

My first SETI project focused on Dyson spheres and how such technology may affect its host stars. Using the MESA stellar modelling software, I demonstrated that hot or reflective Dyson spheres can cause convective stars to expand and cool, extending their lifetimes. We also generated color-magnitude diagrams to motivate future Dyson sphere searches over a variety of possible configurations. The work is published in the Astrophysical Journal here and described in my blog post. The paper was also covered by Astrobites. I also co-lead the completion of the Fall 2020 Penn State SETI graduate course project. We presented the theory behind and a search method form relay probes in an interstellar communication network. Nick Tusay and I are co-first authors on the publication in the Astronomical Journal. I led the introduction, observation planning, and collaboration logistics, while Nick led the extensive data analysis.

Galactic Populations Synthesis Modeling

As an undergraduate student at Ohio State, I worked with Matthew Penny and Scott Gaudi to develop an early version of a new flexible, modular Galactic population synthesis modeling code. I am now working with a group, including Jonas Klüter, Samson Johnson, and Matthew Penny, to prepare an improved version of the code called SynthPop to share publicly on GitHub. We expect to publish the code in late 2022! We are working on a paper describing the software and a paper applying our new code to make predictions for the Roman Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey.

Low-mass Stars and Brown Dwarfs

My second year project in grad school was about low-mass stars and brown dwarf formation, advised by Kevin Luhman. We found no evidence in the W3 star-forming region for variation in the substellar initial mass function. Our results are published in the Astronomical Journal here.

My full publication list is available in my CV and my ADS library.

Teaching

In the Fall 2022 Semester, I am co-teaching Penn State’s ASTRO 297, an undergrad course in Astronomy Communication. We teach students how to read and write academic papers and practice presentation skills, both for talks and posters.