Storm Colloms
they/them
Welcome! I'm Storm, a third year PhD student at the Institute for Gravitational Research at the University of Glasgow,
working on gravitational wave astrophysics. In particular my work focuses on using gravitational wave data and machine learning techniques
to understand the origins of stellar mass black holes and how their progenitors evolved.
I am also very fond of photography, sci-fi, storytelling and cats. I try to help with with DEI (diversity, equality and inclusion)
and outreach efforts where I can, and am always on the lookout for people who I can help make academia a better place with.
Research
PhD - Inferring the origins of compact objects (University of Glasgow, October 2022 to Present)
My research involves understanding the population of black holes born from massive stars,
comparing gravitational wave data to simulations of millions of these binaries to learn more about how they formed.
Through seeing how changes in the input physics effect the resulting parameters of black hole mergers, these
population synthesis simulations can help constrain the uncertainties of binary evolution. My work invovles using a type of machine learning called a normalising flow
to emulate population synthesis models and rapidly evaluate the outcomes of many simulated
binary populations.
Want to learn more about normalising flows? Check out this tutorial I developed to learn how to train your own normalising flow.
Master's Project (University of Edinburgh)
I worked on statistically analysing quasar variability, and modelling this variability as shot noise.
I compared these models to data from observations of thousands of quasars, and found evidence for multiple timescales of variability
present in quasar accretion disks.
I made a Twine-based hypertext story based on my project, which you can read here!
LIGO SURF 2021 (Caltech)
I worked on improving the search methods for finding gravitationally lensed gravitational waves.
Gravitational lensing can create multiple images of gravitational waves, which can hide some of
these signals behind the noisy data, but no credible lensed events have been found yet (correct as of 2024)!
I imposed a condition to constrain the search to the sky location of a super-threshold event, as the images
will come from approximately the same place in the sky. I wrote an astrobite on my work which you can read
here!
Other (University of Edinburgh, University of Tokyo)
I have also looked at exoplanet transits; identifying planetary mass objects via photometric analysis;
and dynamical formation of planetary systems with tides using N-body code.
Outreach
I'm involved in a few outreach efforts and collaborations, some local, some global, some detailed below:
Astrobites author and editor (January 2023 to Present)
Astrobites is a worldwide collaboration of graduate students that summarises recent puplications in astrophysics into bite-size articles,
written for an undergraduate level. You can check out the articles I've written recently
here.
LIGO magazine illustartor (January 2023 to Present)
LIGO Magazine is a biannual publication by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration which details the latest research,
news and fun events across the community. Since Issue 22 I have been an illustartor on the magazine editorial commitee.
You can find recent PDFs of the magazine here.
Humans of LIGO curator (January 2023 to Present)
Humans of LIGO is an initiative which celebrates individuals of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, profiling a personal bio of
the diverse array of LIGO members and contributors. The blog is hosted here.
Photography
I am an amateur photographer, taking pictures of things I see, places I travel, and my friends. I've been using a digital mirrorless camera since 2019 in conjunction with a 35mm film camera since 2020, often stomping around cities and up hills with both. Come talk to me about photography, I love meeting other photographers and helping people learn more about it! Below is a mix of film and digital photographs I have taken over the past few years.Contact
s.colloms.1@research.gla.ac.uk