Home Institution: Smith College
Research Project: New Radiofrequency Detectors for Particle Physics
UW Mentor(s): Gray Rybka

Q: What are your physics/science interests?
I have a pretty broad range of interests, but at the end of the day I'd say that anything outside of our solar system is most exciting to me; low-mass stars, binary stars, galactic evolution, black holes, cosmology, dark energy, dark matter... the list goes on! Aside from my own realm of astrophysics, I love electronics and computer science and would love to learn more about them. I like to read up on biophysics research as well since biophysics research tends to have pretty awesome medical implications.

Q: What are your other interests?
One of the many reasons I chose to attend a small liberal arts college as opposed to a larger research university has to do with the fact that I like too many things! Aside from physics, which I love, I am also interested in art (and its histories), music, film and media studies and foreign languages. Outside of academia (surprisingly life isn't all about school) I enjoy hiking/enjoying the outdoors, attending concerts, and impulsively dyeing my hair.

Q: What would you like to do after college?
After undergrad I plan to go to graduate school, which will undoubtedly consume the next few years of my life. After that, I'm pretty undecided at this point. I do love teaching, so I could definitely see myself becoming a professor one day. I also love doing outreach so that's another possibility. Ideally, I'd like to be able to combine a little bit of both.

Q: Tell us one strange but interesting fact about yourself.
I've dyed my hair pretty much every color under the Sun. As I'm typing this it's currently cherry red, but it's been pink, blue, green, purple, black, blonde and a combination of all of those.

Q: What first sparked your interest in Physics?
If we trace all the way back to childhood, it was probably my interest in astronomy that started first to be honest, but I think everyone loves space as a kid (I mean, how could you not). As far as physics goes... I'd have to say physics youtube videos really got me started. I remember being 14 years old watching videos about black holes and relativity back to back until I lost track of time. I particularly liked channels like Vsauce, Veritasium and Physics Girl (I still watch all of their videos from time to time).

Q: If you could have any pet what would it be?
I've always wanted to get a sunbeam snake, or a rat. I don't really have much reason behind it other than I think they're really beautiful and cute respectively. Plus I think rats are pretty smart from what I remember? On a more tame note I really do love cats (but I already have some so I guess that's not much of a dream pet).

Q: If you had a free month and unlimited funds, how would you spend your time?
As much as I love science, I would probably take a break from working to travel the world. I know that probably sounds corny but I've never had the money nor the time to leave the United States before and I would love to be able to see more of the world that I'm trying so hard to understand!

Q: If you could get a grant to study anything what would it be?
This is a tough question... I have such broad research interests! It would definitely be space related, and probably observing based in my dream world. At the moment, I'd probably be interested in observing and studying low-mass binary stars since they're what I'm planning to do my undergraduate thesis on, but if future me got a research grant to study something it'd probably be way different since my interests are always evolving!