Home Institution: Wellesley College
Research Project: Optoelectronics of 2D Semiconductor Heterostructures
UW Mentor(s): Xiaodong Xu

Q: What are your physics/science interests?
Oh dear, I have so many! I suppose as a general characterization I could say I'm most interested in really strange topics in physics and science. I'm especially fond of topics in physics that combine the processes of the extremely large and the extremely small: Hawking radiation, neutron stars, miniscule adjustments of moiré patterns that produce ridiculously disproportionate physical effects, really early cosmology. I'm also partial to the physics of deceptively simple systems (chaos in a dripping icicle or lift forces on a sailboat, for example). As far as non-physics scientific interests are concerned, I've long been interested in ecology, plant biology (esp. of PNW native plants, trees, and poisonous vegetation of all sorts), geology, neurobiology, astronomy, and the philosophy/history of science. Right, I'll stop now!

Q: What are your other interests?
Again, far too many to list without being impolitely long-winded! I've always enjoyed outdoor/physical activities (sailing, hiking, biking, archery, skiing, rock climbing, scuba diving, tree climbing, etc.), and I like learning new languages (I'm a bit obsessed with linguistics; mostly etymology and conlangs). I am also an unabashed bibliophile and enjoy writing, photography, and making/watching movies as well (the ones I watch are much better than the ones I make). When I can find fun ones, I also like doing puzzles and cryptic crosswords (though I'm not often terribly successful at the latter).

Q: What would you like to do after college?
I'd really like to pursue a PhD in Physics, since I love research and hope to continue doing it as a career. I think it'd be nice to do research and teach as a professor somewhere. I'm also considering applying to some traveling fellowships for the year between college and graduate school.

Q: Tell us one strange but interesting fact about yourself.
I'm not sure how interesting this is, but I have a really weird relationship with words; I read a dictionary cover-to-cover as a kid but still serially mispronounce words, and I reflexively spoonerize pretty much everything.

Q: What first sparked your interest in Physics?
No one thing really sparked my interest in Physics, I think (though sometimes when asked this question I credit a documentary on black holes I watched when I was 5). I was (am??) a super curious kid; my dad and I did little science experiments in the summer, and my eyes were perpetually glued to a book (or a Wikipedia article). After a while I started to realize that I really liked to understand the topics I was most curious about through a rather physics-y lens. When I got to high school, I found out that my affinity for calculus could be put to good use studying physics, and that pretty much sealed the deal for me! Most importantly, I think it'll be quite difficult to run out of fascinating things to study using physics!

Q:If you could have any pet what would it be?
I'm not sure I'd really be comfortable having a living thing as a pet; I'd much rather just spend time with them as friends (linguistically-limited though said friendship may be). I really like wolves, peregrine falcons, and orcas, though I'm not sure I'd get to spend all that much time with them, given their highly mobile existences. If I can choose a mythical creature, then I'd like to befriend a dragon (the attachment to their hoard might make them more sedentary, and therefore easier to locate when I want to hang out).

Q: If you had a free month and unlimited funds, how would you spend your time?
Assuming the unlimited-ness of the funds doesn't make them entirely worthless, I'd set up a range of different scholarships, programs, grants, etc. that would focus on issues I think are important or give people who I think are brilliant a chance to work on issues they think are important. I'd pour as much money into each as I could without wrecking the world economy (at least until the Program to Devise More Sustainable Economic Systems Than Those We Use Currently finds a promising alternative to money), so that they'd all continue to be funded for as long as necessary after the month is over. If setting up all these things doesn't use up all of my time during that month, I'd spend the rest of my time getting involved in projects of interest that I could offer something of value to (physics research, clean energy stuff, etc.), or, if it seems I can't contribute much, sailing to Alaska.

Q: If you could get a grant to study anything what would it be?
I'm a little obsessed with Hawking radiation, so I'd certainly like to have a chance to explore its paradoxes and effects more. I've also been interested in wolf ecology and the physics of sailing for quite some time, so it'd be really cool to study either of those topics as well. Though it's garnered a bit more attention than the latter two of late, I'd also like to see what more can be learned from entangled systems (I think the science behind the loophole-free Bell tests from a few years ago is really neat).