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Research Field

Overview

My research lies at the intersection of Gravitational Wave (GW) Astrophysics and Cosmology. I focus on developing and applying statistical methods — in particular beyond-Gaussian parameter estimation techniques — to extract cosmological and astrophysical information from GW observations with current and next-generation detectors.

Research Areas

Cosmology with Gravitational Waves

Gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences (CBCs) provide a direct, independent measurement of luminosity distance, making them powerful standard sirens for cosmology. My work explores how third-generation (3G) detectors such as the Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer can constrain cosmological parameters — including the Hubble constant \(H_0\) and dark energy models — using both bright (electromagnetic-counterpart) and dark sirens (statistical methods with galaxy catalogs).

Parameter Estimation Beyond the Gaussian Approximation

The standard Fisher-matrix approach to GW parameter estimation assumes Gaussian posteriors, which breaks down at low signal-to-noise ratio or for non-linear signal models. I develop and apply the Derivative Approximation for Likelihoods (DALI), a higher-order expansion that captures non-Gaussian features of the posterior at low computational cost. DALI is implemented in GWDALI, an open-source Python package I developed and maintain.

Third-Generation Gravitational Wave Observatories

I study the science potential of next-generation GW observatories, contributing to the Einstein Telescope collaboration through the ET Observational Science Board (ET-OSB). My contributions span cosmology forecasts, detector network optimization, and gravitational-wave data analysis pipelines.

Numerical Modeling & High-Performance Computing

A significant part of my work involves large-scale numerical simulations of GW source populations and Monte Carlo parameter estimation. I make extensive use of Python, C, and parallel computing on HPC clusters.

Research Groups & Memberships

Núcleo Cosmo-UFES & PPGCosmo

Postdoctoral Fellow (since Oct. 2025) at the Cosmology group of the Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, funded by FAPES. Working on gravitational-wave cosmology and DALI-based inference.

Einstein Telescope Observational Science Board (ET-OSB)

Member since June 2022. Active contributor to:

  • Div. 1 — Fundamental Physics
  • Div. 2 — Cosmology
  • Div. 9 — Common Tools

Brazilian Einstein Telescope Synergy (BETS)

Member since January 2024. Contribution: improvements on the DALI approximation for GW data analysis and cosmology.

Previous Affiliations

  • Instituto de Física, UFRJ — Postdoctoral Fellow (Jan. 2024 – Sep. 2025)
  • PPGF, UFRN — Ph.D. in Physics / Cosmology (Mar. 2019 – Jul. 2023)

Software

GWDALI

An open-source Python package (available on PyPI) implementing the Derivative Approximation for Likelihoods (DALI) for GW parameter estimation beyond the Gaussian approximation, in user-defined detector networks.

pip install gwdali