Dr. La Plante (Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University) researches astronomy and cosmology, where he studies the birth of the first stars and galaxies nearly 13 billion years ago. He is a member of the HERA and Simons Observatory telescope collaborations, and uses high performance computing for performing cosmological simulations of the universe. He teaches courses on data science and analysis in the Department of Computer Science. In addition, he coordinates public outreach and science education initiatives for the Public Communication Initiative at UNLV. A full list of publications and research interests is available on his personal website.