CV

A PDF version of this CV can be found here.

Education

• Ph.D in Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 2020
  • Advisor: Andrey Kravtsov
  • Thesis Topic: Dark Matter Halos and Their Environments
• B.S. in Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, 2014
  • University Honors

Fellowships and Awards

• Kipac Fellowship, 2020 - 2023
• Sugarman Award, 2020
• James Cronin Graduate Student Fellowship, 2019 - 2020
• William Rainey Harper Dissertation Fellowship, 2019 - 2020
• McCormick Fellowship, 2014 - 2016
• Richard E. Cutkosky Award, 2014

Publications

My papers can also be found on ADS.

1. Nadler, E., Mansfield, P., Wang, Y., Du, X., Adhikari, S.; Banerjee, Arka., Benson, An., Darragh-Ford, E., Mao, Y., Wagner-Carena, S., Wechsler, R., Wu, H., Symphony: Cosmological Zoom-in Simulation Suites over Four Decades of Host Halo Mass, 2022, in review, ADS link

2. Chen, H., Gnedin, N., Mansfield, P., Approximating Density Probability Distribution Functions Across Cosmologies, 2022, ApJ, 929(2), 135, ADS link

3. Mansfield, P., Avestruz, C., How Biased Are Halo Properties in Cosmological Simulations?, 2021, MNRAS, 500(3), 3309, ADS link

4. He, Y., Mansfield, P., Rau, M., P., Trac, H., Battaglia, N., Debiased Galaxy Cluster Pressure Profiles from X-ray Observations and Simulations, 2021, ApJ, Volume 908(1), 91, ADS link

5. Neuzil, M.*, Mansfield, P., Kravtsov, A., The Sheet of Giants: Unusual properties of the Milky Way’s immediate neighbourhood, 2020, MNRAS, 494, 2600, ADS link

6. Mansfield, P., & Kravtsov, A. V., The Three Causes of Low-Mass Assembly Bias, 2019, 2020, MNRAS, 493, 4763, ADS link

7. Diemer, B., Mansfield, P., Kravtsov, A. V., & More, S., The Splashback Radius of Halos from Particle Dynamics. II. Dependence on Mass, Accretion Rate, Redshift, and Cosmology, 2017, ApJ, 843, 140, ADS link

8. Mansfield, P., Kravtsov, A. V., & Diemer, B., Splashback Shells of Cold Dark Matter Halos, 2017, ApJ, 841, 34 ADS link

9. Trac, H., Cen, R., & Mansfield, P., SCORCH I: The Galaxy-Halo Connection in the First Billion Years, 2015, ApJ, 813, 54, ADS link

10. Matty, M., Mansfield, P., Hallinen, K., Albert, J., Swendsen, R., Cluster simulations of multi- spin Potts models, 2015, JSTAT, 1, 1026 ADS link JSTAT link

* I am the primary research mentor for this student on this project.

Publications in Preparation

1. Mansfield, P., Abel, T., Guppy I: A code for reducing the size of cosmological simulations by an order of magnitude

2. Mendoza I.**, Mansfield, P., Wang, K., Avestruz, C. MultiCAM: Connecting Halo Properties with their Accretion Histories

3. Mansfield, P., Darragh-Ford, E., Nadler, E., Wang, Y., Wechsler, R. The Surprising Durability of Simulated Dark Matter Haloes

4. Zhang, B.*, Mansfield, P., Wechsler, R., The Connection Between Satellite Disruption and Subhalo Disruption in Illustris-TNG

5. Mansfield, P., Darragh-Ford, E., Nadler, E., Wang, Y., Wechsler, R. The Impact of The Galaxy-Halo Connection of Galactic Stellar Haloes

* I am the co-mentor for this student.

** I am the primary research mentor for this student on this project.

Teaching and Mentoring

• Research mentor for seven undergraduate and graduate student projects (2018 - present)
  • Maria Neuzil (University of St. Thomas; undergraduate)
  • Ismael Mendoza (University of Michigan; graduate student; co-mentored with Camille Avestruz)
  • Lindsey Payne (Stanford University; under- graduate)
  • Sebastian Wagner-Carena (Stanford University; graduate student)
  • Boxin Zhang (Stanford University; undergraduate)
  • Althea Hudson (Stanford University, undergraduate)
  • Elise Darragh-Ford (Stanford University; graduate student)
• Co-instructor of PHYSICS 16, Stanford University (2022)
  • Co-instructed PHYSICS 16: The Origin and Development of the Cosmos, an introductory astronomy course on cosmology and galaxies for non-majors alongside Risa Wechsler. Split responsibility for lec- ture/active learning sessions, developed assignments, exams, projects, and rubrics.
• KICP Space Explorers Instructor, University of Chicago (2016 - 2017)
  • Designed and taught year-long high school physics class. Class culminated with the launch of student-built experiments on a weather balloon.
• TA, University of Chicago (2014 - 2015)
  • The Physics of Stars
  • Stellar Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Origin of the Universe and How We Know
• TA, Carnegie Mellon University (2011 - 2012)
  • Principles of Computing (Three times)
  • Parallel and Sequential Data Structures and Algorithms

Outreach

• Stanford University (2020 - present)
  • Various outreach activities once to twice a month, ranging from speaking in classrooms, to giving talks for amateur astronomy societies, to star-gazing parties.
• Office of Special Programs Tutor, University of Chicago (2017 - 2019)
  • Weekly math, physics, and computer science tutoring for low-income and first generation high school students.
• Yerkes Institute Designer and Instructor, University of Chicago (2016 - 2018)
  • Designed over 50 hours of novel lab material and taught over 200 hours of labs for six high school-level winter and summer science camps.
  • Self-Driving Cars (2018)
  • City of Tomorrow (2018)
  • Demystifying everyday electronics (2017)
  • Spy Vs. Spy (2016)
  • The Physics of Toys (2017)
  • Up and Down (2016)
• Astronomy Conversations Presenter, Adler Planetarium (2014 - 2016)
  • Monthly presentations on astronomy to planetarium visitors.

Public Codes and Libraries

• Guppy, (2022),
  • A compression algorithm for N-body simulation data
• Symlib, (2022)
  • A publicly accessible code base which makes working with simulated dark matter halo data more student- friendly. Written for the Symphony simulation suite.
• Shellfish, (2017)
  • An algorithm for finding the splashback edge of dark matter halos in simulations
• Gotetra, (2015)
  • Tesselation-based visualization software for N-body simulations

I have also written many open source libraries and research tools, ranging from fitting libraries, to simulation I/O libraries, to color blind-friendly plotting palettes.

Conference Talks and Seminars

• The Galaxy-Halo Connection Across Cosmic Time (2020)
  • KITP, University of California
• Berkeley Cosmology Seminar (2019)
  • University of California, Berkeley
• KIPAC Cosmology Seminar (2019)
  • KIPAC, Stanford University, Stanford
• Halo and Galaxy Assembly Bias - from Theory to Observation (2019)
  • Tsung Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai
• National Science Teachers Association 2018 National Conference (2018)
  • Atlanta, GA
• Quantifying and Understanding the Galaxy–Halo Connection (2017)
  • KITP, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Astronomy & Astrophysics Chalk Talk (2016)
  • University of Chicago, Chicago