David A. Nichols

Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Virginia

Below are current and former group members and advisees. I do not anticipate having support for a PhD student or postdoc during the upcoming application cycle, though I am happy to support applications for fellowships to work in my group. I can, however, guide undergraduate research projects and senior theses. You can contact me by email to inquire about open positions in the group.

Current Group Members

Postdoctoral Scholars

  • Sayantani Datta (UVA Rising Scholars webpage)
    UVA Rising Scholar Postdoctoral Fellow in Physics and group member since 09/2023.
    Research Areas: Tests of general relativity, gravitational-wave memory

Graduate Students

  • Arwa Elhashash (UVA Physics webpage)
    UVA PhD student in Physics and group member since 08/2019.
    Research Areas: Asymptotically flat spacetimes, gravitational-wave memory and waveform modeling

  • Benjamin Wade (UVA Physics webpage)
    UVA PhD student in Physics and group member since 02/2021.
    Research Areas: Environmental effects in extreme- and intermediate-mass-ratio inspirals

  • Siddhant Siddhant (UVA Physics webpage)
    UVA PhD student in Physics and group member since 01/2022.
    Research Areas: Asymptotically flat spacetimes, gravitational-wave memory and persistent observables

Former Group Members and Advisees

Postdoctoral Scholars

  • Alexander Grant
    UVA postdoc in Physics 09/2020–08/2023.
    Currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Southampton.

Graduate Students

  • Shammi Tahura
    PhD in Physics from UVA in 2021.
    Former PhD student of Kent Yagi and postdoc at the University of Guelph. Currently a visiting research associate at the University of Iowa.

  • Oliver Boersma
    MS in Astrophysics from Radboud University in 2019.
    Co-advised MS thesis (on memory-effect detection prospects) with Patricia Schmidt. Completed a PhD program in astronomy at the University of Amsterdam (NL) and currently working for the Rijkswaterstaat as a data scientist.

  • Andras Dorozsmai
    MS in Astrophysics from Radboud University in 2018.
    Helped with supervising MS thesis (on compact-object populations); primary supervisor was Gijs Nelemans. Currently in the PhD program in astrophysics at the University of Birmingham (UK).

Undergraduate Students

  • Bejoy Sen
    BS in Physics and Computer Science from UVA in 2023
    Independent-study research project on spacetime curvature visualization 01/2022–05/2022; currently working in industry.

  • Andrew Tuma
    BS in Physics from UVA in 2020.
    Former senior thesis advisee (on spacetime visualization methods) 09/2019–05/2020. Completed a MS degree in Applied Mathematics at San Diego State University (SDSU); currently working in industry as a data scientist.

  • Yara Yousef
    BS in Astronomy/Physics from UVA in 2020.
    Former senior thesis advisee (on memory-effect detection prospects) 09/2019–05/2020. Currently in a MS program in machine learning and articial intellegence at the University of Barcelona.