DPR Institute

Derifield Physical Sciences Research. Independent research in physics, electronics, chemistry, astronomy, and sustainability.

The WIYN 0.9-meter telescope dome on Kitt Peak under a deep night sky.

Independent research across physics, electronics, chemistry, astronomy, and sustainability.

Derifield Physical Sciences Research is a working research practice. I build experiments, instruments, and analyses, and publish the record: questions, methods, data, code, and results.

Kitt Peak National Observatory. Photo: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Marenfeld (CC BY 4.0).

Five areas, one practice.

The common thread is measurement. Each area has its own instruments, data, and failure modes, but the standard is the same: state the question, show the method, keep the data, and make the result checkable.

01

Measurement and models

Physics

Measurement, instrumentation, and models for systems where the uncertainty budget matters as much as the headline number.

A section of the LCLS accelerator with copper and orange components and a long experimental hall.
02

Instruments and readout

Electronics

Sensors, readout, embedded control, and the calibration chain that turns a physical quantity into a recorded number.

A technician in a cleanroom working beside a white robotic arm inside a glass enclosure.
03

Analysis and materials

Chemistry

Analytical measurement, spectroscopy, materials, and the chemistry of small samples and real matrices.

A modern chemistry teaching laboratory with rows of benches, fume hoods, and glassware.
04

Time domain and archives

Astronomy

Transit timing, archive photometry, and the instrumentation that connects a photon count to a physical model.

Four Very Large Telescope Unit Telescopes on Cerro Paranal at twilight under a deep blue sky.
05

Energy and environment

Sustainability

Energy, materials, and environmental measurement, with the same rule: state the boundary, the data, and the uncertainty.

A line of wind turbines across dry farmland under a clear blue sky.
Four Very Large Telescope Unit Telescopes on Cerro Paranal at twilight.

TESS transit timing

A reproducible pipeline for public TESS photometry. The first formal project includes a frozen archive selection rule, a synthetic recovery campaign, two real single-transit fits, and a full-sector cross-check that reports where the two reduction paths disagree.

Photo: ESO/B. Tafreshi (twanight.org), CC BY 4.0.

How the work is recorded.

  1. 01

    Question first

    Every project starts with the question and the result that would change the answer. The question is written before the data are fitted.

  2. 02

    Data with provenance

    Inputs keep their source, request time, byte count, and digest. A number without a path back to the input is a draft.

  3. 03

    Code with tests

    Calculations live in code that can be run again. Tests cover the boundary cases and the recovery checks that justify the method.

  4. 04

    Status is explicit

    Working notes, preprints, and published papers are labelled as such. Each project states its own scope and limits.

Latest research notes.

Working notes from the current project and the method work behind it. Longer papers and preprints are listed on the publications page.

All notes