We can prevent asteroid impacts.
An asteroid impact is the only natural disaster we have the technology to prevent. But to prevent an impact, we’d need time–ideally decades– to prepare. Therefore, we must discover all of the potentially hazardous near-Earth objects now.
I am an associate professor at Olin College. My research takes tools from the fields of mathematics and computer science and uses them to discover and better understand asteroids and comets. I work with physics and astronomy students to model the physical properties and evolution of these bodies, and I work with engineering students to develop software (such as FindPOTATOs) that enables other researchers and citizen scientists to study asteroids and comets.
