About Me
I grew up near Milwaukee, Wisconsin where I took an interest in science
at a young age. At that point, I thought all sciences were cool and
struggled to pick just one to pursue as a career.
When I was 16, I was lucky enough to travel to
Munich, Germany where I visited the Deutches Museum. There, the cosmology exhibit
sparked my interest in astronomy – the ability to squeeze so much
knowledge out of so little data seemed endlessly fascinating to me.
I attended the University of Wisconsin - Madison
for undergrad, where I majored in astronomy, physics, and mathematics with
a minor in computer science. There I developed my interest in software
development and data science, using my coding skills to build
electromagnetic simulations and analyze observational
data for the Tianlai Pathfinder array.
I now attend the University of
Maryland - College Park, where I completed my master's in astronomy and
am currently in my third year of the Ph. D. program. I'm building on
my experiences developing new analysis software for state-of-the-art
computer simulations of the large-scale structure of the Universe.
Music
I've been heavily involved in music from an early age, playing violin since I was three years old. My mom is a string teacher, teaching me and my siblings (pictured above) as soon as we could fit an instrument into our hands. I was heavily involved in music growing up, whether it was through school or the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra. Although I'm not as involved in music as I used to be, I still find time to play and even picked up guitar for fun. If you're at all interested in my mom's work, check out her website!
Community Service
I enjoy building up the astronomy community through leadership. In undergrad, I was president of the University Physical Society and an officer on the Astronomy Club. I ran events such as field trips to Fermilab (pictured above), and managed to grow UPS from around 50 students to more than 100, despite my year as president occuring during the start of the pandemic. I still take on leadership roles as the vice president of the astronomy graduate students.
Verbal Communication Skills
Early on in life, I seriously struggled to express myself verbally. I knew this was a skill that I needed, and sought out my high school's speech team as an avenue for improving it. For some perspective on how much I struggled, at speech competitions I received the worst score possible in every round I was in for my entire first year. But I persisted and practiced, eventually even earning some state and national bids in my later years. Turning this weakness into a strength is one of my proudest accomplishments, and I occasionally have hosted workshops about what I've learned and techniques to help scientists that are not naturally gifted speakers.
Hiking
I'm not incredibly particular about how I stay active, since I generally enjoy most sports and outdoor activities. Recently, I've been taking a lot of hiking trips, although I also will occasionally play soccer, which was my sport of choice when I was younger.