Biography

I’m a graduate student in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, studying the relationship between supernovae and their host galaxies with Dr. Gautham Narayan. We can use these correlations to photometrically classify transients and improve their standardizability in preparation for large surveys such as the Legacy Survey for Space and Time (LSST). I also work with colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory on combining cosmology simulations with inline chemical networks to study the early evolution of complex molecules. I received my Bachelor’s degree in Computational Modeling and Data Analytics from Virginia Tech.

I’m also passionate about making astronomy accessible to all. I founded astro[sound]bites, a podcast where I discuss recent astronomy research with two other graduate students. I’ve also led outreach efforts in Libreville, Gabon for the 2016 solar eclipse, and Goa, India for the Story of Space. I’m constantly looking for new ways to incorporate cultural knowledge and sound-based representations of information in astronomy. In my free time, I love biking and running, playing the banjo, and learning more about the incredible diversity of animals with which we share the planet.