Born in Montreal, Canada, I received my bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Montreal and my Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz. After being a NSERC Fellow at the Institute for Astronomy in Hawaii and a Hubble Fellow at the NOIRLab in Tucson, I joined the Maryland faculty as an assistant professor. I have been the Optical Director at Maryland since 2003. I am primarily interested in the physics of active galactic nuclei and starburst galaxies, particularly the connection between the supermassive black hole, the starburst, and the host galaxy, and the importance of feedback on galaxy evolution and the circum- and inter-galactic media. For this research, I use astronomical facilities that cover the entire electromagnetic spectrum from the X-rays, UV-optical, infrared, and radio. I am also the lead on a number of instrumentation projects for large ground-based optical and near-infrared telescopes with applications for space missions and beyond. Some of these instruments take advantage of recent breakthroughs in astrophotonics - photonics applied to astronomical instrumentation - to outperform conventional filters, spectrometers, and nulling interferometers. These projects also involve colleagues from Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering and the nearby NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.