About me

I grew up in Zgharta, a town in northern Lebanon, where I spent the first seventeen years of my life. I studied physics at Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth and then astrophysics in a joint program with Notre Dame University–Louaize, and it was there, during my master's, that I fell for black holes and never looked back.

Since then, chasing that fascination has taken me around the world. I did my PhD at SISSA in Trieste, Italy, then moved to the US for a postdoc at the University of Michigan. From there it was Toulouse, to join the Athena/X-IFU team at IRAP, a year in Rome at Roma Tre, and finally Pasadena, where I am now a Research Scientist at Caltech.

When I am not thinking about black holes, I am usually thinking about food: cooking, eating, and inventing recipes as I go. I love artisanal coffee and long, wandering conversations. The rest of my time goes to reading and listening to music.