Hecht's research focus is on radiation detection, including detector development, detector material development, detection algorithms and data mining, machine learning for radionuclide identification, and nuclear data - specially on highly correlated fission fragment yield data.  Previous research experience was in heavy ion accelerator experiments for his Ph.D. at Yale University in the Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory (1997-2004) in the physics division as a post-doc at Argonne National Laboratory (2004-2007), and radiation and dosimetry simulation and experiment as a post-doc in the Department of Medical Physics at the University of Wisconsin (2007-2008).  He has over 90 peer reviewed journal publications.