Derek is a first-year Computational and Data Sciences Ph.D. student at Chapman University. He obtained his B.S. and M.S. in Physics at California State University, Fullerton. While there, he was a five-year member of the Nicholas and Lee Begovich Center for Gravitational-Wave Physics and Astronomy, a cell of the international LIGO-Virgo Collaboration, where he worked with simulations of gravitational waves created by collapsing binary neutron star systems.

This experience led to his love of data science and desire to continue using data science for physics research. He is thrilled to be joining the Chapman Spin team.