My name is Logan Fries (pronounced “Freeze”) and I am a 5th year PhD candidate in the Department of Physics at the University of Connecticut. Under the advisement of Dr. Jonathan Trump (no relation), my thesis is focused on understanding the kinematics of the broad-line region (BLR) in active galactic nuclei (AGN) using reverberation mapping. I am a part of the SDSS-V Black Hole Mapper group. Other than my thesis work, I am also working on projects involving black hole spin.

Outside of academia, I am passionate about taking photos on my Cannon AE-1 film camera, making and sharing coffee with others. My favorite method to brew coffee is a pour over with a Kalita Wave dripper. I also enjoy reading classic/contemporary literature. I am currently reading Stoner by John Williams. I am a huge fan of indie music. I also love to stay active by playing basketball, tennis, and soccer!

As someone who played many sports growing up, I love to go to Royals, Chiefs, and Sporting KC games with my family whenever I am visiting them in the Kansas City, Missouri area! I am also a supporter of Liverpool FC. With the recent explosion of analytics in sports, I am really fascinating with using my skills learned from physics and astronomy to do modeling in sports analytics. You can check out some of my work with that here.