Meet the Team
Becka Phillipson, PhD
Principal Investigator
Dr. Becka Phillipson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at Villanova University. Previously, she was an NSF MPS-Ascend postdoctoral fellow (2021-2024) and held an appointment at the University of Washington (2020-2022). She completed her PhD in Physics at Drexel University, where her graduate work was funded under a NASA Harrett G. Jenkins graduate research fellowship.
Dr. Phillipson is an astrophysicist who leverages statistics, nonlinear dynamics, and machine learning to study the explosive and highly variable characteristics of exotic astrophysical objects, such as black holes and neutron stars.
A list of publications can be found on the ADS website here.
Current Research Group Members
Senior Personnel
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr. Messick explores optimal selection techniques of AGN from large photometric surveys, intrinsic variability of AGN, ensemble studies of the population of dwarf AGN, and implementation strategies for machine learning in studying AGN variability. Their work is foundational for Early Science with Rubin Observatory’s LSST.
Undergraduate Students
Spring 2026 First-Year Match Students: Kate Gilletta (Physics), Campbell Essex (Physics)
Samantha Spivack
Class of 2027, Statistics (Major), Astronomy (Minor), and French (Minor)
Villanova Undergraduate Research Fellow, Summer 2025
NASA Delaware Space Grant Consortium Fellow, Summer 2025
Villanova Match Program, Spring 2024
Current project: applying machine learning classification algorithms to distinguish recurrence plot features that vary with the accretion states of the black hole XRB, GRS 1915+105.
Recent publication: “Investigating the Changing Environment of a Black Hole” Veritas: Villanova Research Journal, Vol. 6 No. 1, 2024
Nathaniel Slichta
Class of 2028, Physics
Villanova Match Program, Spring 2025
Current project: developing a novel approach for sonifying recurrence plots, with a specific application to the various accretion states of GRS 1915+105.
Recent publication: “Analysis and Sonification of the Heartbeat State in the Black Hole Binary GRS 1915+105” Veritas: Villanova Research Journal, Vol. 7 No. 1, 2025
Past Collaborators
Caleb de los Angeles (now PhD student at Drexel University)
Emily Broadbent (now PhD student at University of California, San Diego)
