I am a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University a member of the CHIME/FRB Collaboration. My research interests include fast radio bursts, high-energy follow up, and circumgalactic media, particularly in the context of astrostatistics. I received my PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Toronto in 2025, and an honours BSc in mathematics and physics from McGill University in 2019. As an undergrad I held a variety of summer research positions including at NASA JPL and the University of Kyoto.

cook@astro.utoronto.ca

Curriculum Vitae

Publications:

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6422-8125

First Author:

• Cook, A. M., Li, D., Eadie, G. M., Stenning, D. C., Scholz, P., Bingham, D. et al. (2024). k-Contact Distance for Noisy Nonhomogeneous Spatial Point Data with application to Repeating Fast Radio Burst sources, Submitted to Annals of Applied Statistics (16-10-2024) eprint arXiv:2410.12146
• Cook, A. M., Scholz, P., Pearlman, A. B., Abbott, T. C., Cruces, M. et al. (2024). Contemporaneous X-ray Observations of 30 Bright Radio Bursts from the Prolific Fast Radio Burst Source FRB 20220912A, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 974, Issue 2, id.170
• Cook, A. M., M. Bhardwaj, B. M. Gaensler, P. Scholz, G. M. Eadie, et al. (2023). An FRB Sent Me a DM: Constraining the Electron Column of the Milky Way Halo with Fast Radio Burst Dispersion Measures from CHIME/FRB, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 946, Issue 2, id.58, 14 pp.

N^th Author:

• Pearlman, A. B., P. Scholz, S. Bethapudi, J. W. T. Hessels, V. M. Kaspi, et al. (2023). Multiwavelength Constraints on the Origin of a Nearby Repeating Fast Radio Burst Source in a Globular Cluster, eprint arXiv:2308.10930
• Ibik, A. L., Drout, M. R., Gaensler, B. M., Scholz, P., Sridhar, N., Margalit, B., and 22 colleagues (2024) A search for persistent radio sources toward repeating fast radio bursts discovered by CHIME/FRB, eprint arXiv:2409.11533
• Curtin, A. P., Sirota, S., Kaspi, V. M., Tendulkar, S. P., Bhardwaj, M., Cook, A. M. , and 9 colleagues (2024) Constraining Near-simultaneous Radio Emission from Short Gamma-Ray Bursts Using CHIME/FRB, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 972, Issue 1, id.125, 19 pp.
• Bhardwaj, M., Michilli, D., Kirichenko, A. Y., Modilim, O., Shin, K., Kaspi, V. M., and 22 colleagues (2024) Host Galaxies for Four Nearby CHIME/FRB Sources and the Local Universe FRB Host Galaxy Population, The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 971, Issue 2, id.L51, 27 pp.
• Dong, F. A., Clarke, T., Curtin, A. P., Kumar, A., Stairs, I., Chatterjee, S., and 15 colleagues (2024) The discovery of a nearby 421~s transient with CHIME/FRB/Pulsar, eprint arXiv:2407.07480
• The CHIME/FRB Collaboration (2024) Updating the First CHIME/FRB Catalog of Fast Radio Bursts with Baseband Data, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 969, Issue 2, id.145, 17 pp.
• Pandhi, A., Pleunis, Z., Mckinven, R., Gaensler, B. M., Su, J., Ng, C., and 20 colleagues (2024) Polarization Properties of 128 Nonrepeating Fast Radio Bursts from the First CHIME/FRB Baseband Catalog, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 968, Issue 2, id.50, 34 pp.
• Mckinven, R., Bhardwaj, M., Eftekhari, T., Kilpatrick, C. D., Kirichenko, A., Pal, A., and 38 colleagues (2024) A pulsar-like swing in the polarisation position angle of a nearby fast radio burst, eprint arXiv:2402.09304
• Ibik, A. L., Drout, M. R., Gaensler, B. M., Scholz, P., Michilli, D., Bhardwaj, M., and 15 colleagues (2024) Proposed Host Galaxies of Repeating Fast Radio Burst Sources Detected by CHIME/FRB, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 961, Issue 1, id.99, 17 pp.
• Dong, F. A., Crowter, K., Meyers, B. W., Pleunis, Z., Stairs, I., Tan, C. M., and 10 colleagues (2023) The second set of pulsar discoveries by CHIME/FRB/Pulsar: 14 rotating radio transients and 7 pulsars, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 524, Issue 4, pp.5132-5147
• Sand, K. R., Breitman, D., Michilli, D., Kaspi, V. M., Chawla, P., Fonseca, E., and 28 colleagues (2023) A CHIME/FRB Study of Burst Rate and Morphological Evolution of the Periodically Repeating FRB 20180916B, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 956, Issue 1, id.23, 19 pp.
• Curtin, A. P., Tendulkar, S. P., Josephy, A., Chawla, P., Andersen, B., Kaspi, V. M., and 18 colleagues (2023) Limits on Fast Radio Burst-like Counterparts to Gamma-Ray Bursts Using CHIME/FRB, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 954, Issue 2, id.154, 16 pp.
• Lin, H.-H., Scholz, P., Ng, C., Pen, U.-L., Bhardwaj, M., Chawla, P., and 43 colleagues (2023) Do All Fast Radio Bursts Repeat? Constraints from CHIME/FRB Far Side-Lobe FRBs, eprint arXiv:2307.05261
• Lin, H.-H., Scholz, P., Ng, C., Pen, U.-L., Li, D. Z., Newburgh, L., and 37 colleagues (2023) Constraints on the Intergalactic and Local Dispersion Measure of Fast Radio Bursts with the CHIME/FRB far side-lobe events, eprint arXiv:2307.05262
• Michilli, D., Bhardwaj, M., Brar, C., Gaensler, B. M., Kaspi, V. M., Kirichenko, A., and 24 colleagues (2023) Subarcminute Localization of 13 Repeating Fast Radio Bursts Detected by CHIME/FRB, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 950, Issue 2, id.134, 12 pp.
• The CHIME/FRB Collaboration (2023) CHIME/FRB Discovery of 25 Repeating Fast Radio Burst Sources, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 947, Issue 2, id.83, 31 pp.
• The CHIME/FRB Collaboration (2023) Erratum: "The First CHIME/FRB Fast Radio Burst Catalog" (2021, ApJS, 257, 59), The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Volume 264, Issue 2, id.53, 3 pp.
• The CHIME/FRB Collaboration (2021) The First CHIME/FRB Fast Radio Burst Catalog, The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Volume 257, Issue 2, id.59, 41 pp.
• Bhardwaj, M., Gaensler, B. M., Kaspi, V. M., Landecker, T. L., Mckinven, R., Michilli, D., and 20 colleagues (2021) A Nearby Repeating Fast Radio Burst in the Direction of M81, The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 910, Issue 2, id.L18, 14 pp.
• The CHIME/FRB Collaboration (2020) A bright millisecond-duration radio burst from a Galactic magnetar, Nature, Volume 587, Issue 7832, p.54-58
• Scholz, P., Cook, A. , Cruces, M., Hessels, J. W. T., Kaspi, V. M., Majid, W. A., and 32 colleagues (2020) Simultaneous X-Ray and Radio Observations of the Repeating Fast Radio Burst FRB ∼ 180916.J0158+65, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 901, Issue 2, id.165, 9 pp.

Media:

Articles about me and my work:

• "The X-ray mysteries of neutron stars and white dwarfs": Nature Astronomy, Meeting Report, Nanda Rea and Norbert Schartel (November 28th, 2024)
• "Do X-rays accompany fast radio bursts?": NICER / ISS Science Nugget (October 24th, 2024)
• "Mystery Bursts Give Astronomers a View into Galaxy Halos": Sky and Telescope, Govert Schilling (April 12th, 2023)
• Astronomers Use Alien Signals to “Probe” the Milky Way’s Halo: Curiosmos, Ivan Petricevic (March 31st, 2023)
• "Fast Radio Bursts Reveal The Milky Way's Halo Is Surprisingly Light": IFL Science, Stephen Luntz (March 31st, 2023)
• "Fast radio bursts used as 'searchlights’ to detect gas in Milky Way": U of T News, Meaghan MacSween (March 30th, 2023)
• "June Graduate Student of the Month": Dunlap Institute, Meaghan MacSween (March 30th, 2023)
• "Fast Radio Bursts 2021": Nature Astronomy, Meeting Report, Jason W. T. Hessels (November 3rd, 2021)

Recordings of (Academic) Talks:

• Multiphase Madness: "Constraining the Plasma in the Milky Way's Halo with CHIME/FRB". Harvard Center for Astrophysics (August 2024)
• Astrostatistics in Canada and Beyond: "Towards Solving the Fast Radio Burst Enigma with CHIME/FRB: Probability of Event Chance Coincidence for Nonhomogeneous Noisy Spatial Point Processes". Banff International Research Station(October 2023)
• Caltech Astro Seminar: "Constraining the Plasma in the Milky Way's Halo with CHIME/FRB - Amanda Cook", (November 2021)
• FRB2021 Plenary 11B - Probes - Intervening Magneto-ionic Material: "Constraining the Plasma in the Milky Way's Halo with CHIME/FRB"(August 2021)

Public Outreach Interviews/Activities:

• "Telescopes": SciShow Tangents Podcast (November 28th, 2023) (I came up with the acronym for Swift/BAT GUANO)
• What is our Cosmic Address? Dunlap Institute, Cosmos on your Couch series. (April 12th, 2023)
• What is a Fast Radio Burst? Dunlap Institute, Cosmos on your Couch series. (February 8th, 2023)
• Who gets to name the stars? Dunlap Institute, Cosmos on your Couch series. (January 11th, 2023)

Links to my affiliations:

• University of Toronto's Astrostatistics Research Group (ART)
• CHIME/FRB
• Dunlap Institute
• David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Canadian Statistical Science Institute



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Education:

Ph.D. Astronomy and Astrophysics University of Toronto, Toronto ON 2025
Thesis Title: "Fast Radio Burst statistics in time and space: FRB repetition patterns and the Milky Way’s plasma probed by CHIME/FRB"
Thesis Supervisors: Prof. Gwendolyn Eadie, Prof. Bryan Gaensler, Prof. Paul Scholz

B.Sc. First Class Honours in Mathematics and Physics McGill University, Montreal QC (2019)
Thesis Supervisors: Prof. Victoria Kaspi, Dr. Ziggy Pleunis




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