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The measurement of distances via standard candles is a critical component of testing predictions of our standard cosmological model, Lambda-CDM, in the local or late-time Universe. I have contributed meaningfully to two fields: (i) our understanding of dwarf galaxies as the smallest observable dark matter structures and (ii) the measurement of the Hubble constant via the calibration of Type Ia Supernovae. The former project being the Exploration of Local VolumE Satellites (ELVES) relying on surface-brightness fluctuations (SBF) and the latter being the Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program relying on the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) -- both of which utilize properties of low-mass, evolved stars that typify targets in the Apache Point Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE). In this talk, I will describe these from my lens of engineering techniques that can be applied en masse to future wide-area datasets or in a targeted fashion to future deep datasets. I will particularly focus on the challenges for the wide application of these techniques and my role in precisely and accurately addressing them by integrating archival and new observations on a variety of facilities. Thus, in this talk, I will connect my past, current, and future research contributions toward the goal of measuring precise and accurate distances in homogeneously collected data over a huge dynamic range by using old stellar populations. |
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