It Takes Two to Tango: Modeling Binary Stellar Populations in the Gravitational Wave Era

Between the discovery of gravitational waves from dozens of merging compact objects and the advent of micro-arcsecond astrometry realized by the Gaia space telescope, the study of the complexities of binary stellar evolution – including mass transfer, tides, and r-process nucleosynthesis – has taken on a new urgency. In this talk, I will describe the current status of modeling binary star populations as well as several critical shortcomings that my collaborators and I are working to systematically address. In particular, I will focus on how we are using modern statistical and machine learning methods using dedicated supercomputers to improve our physical models of binary star populations.