My work falls broadly under the umbrella of theoretical high-energy astrophysics. I am particularly interested in understanding ‘transient’ events—astrophysical phenomena that are observed to evolve over human timescales. Such events are often associated with dramatic cosmic explosions caused as massive stars collapse onto themselves or ‘compact objects’ (white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes) smash into one another. My research focuses on modeling, interpreting, and using such transient astrophysical events to make progress in addressing fundamental open problems in physics and astrophysics.