I am a sixth year NSF graduate research fellow in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at Penn State University. My research interests are in characterization of stellar variability and exoplanet detection through radial velocity measurements.
I completed my undergraduate degree at The Ohio State University in 2015, double-majoring in Physics and Astronomy, with a minor in History of Art. I am originally from Lima, Ohio, where I attended Elida High School.
Outside of astronomy I enjoy many hobbies, all at a fairly beginner level. I enjoy photography, especially landscape photography, and I love being able to travel and photograph new places. Two of the photos on my home page come from a trip to New Zealand in 2019, the first showing the Mirror Lakes near Milford Sound on a rainy, misty day, and the other showing the view from Mt. Sunday looking out into the valley (for any Lord of the Rings fans, Mt. Sunday was the location where they built the set for Edoras). I’ve dabbled a bit in astrophotography, but nothing too much more than taking my DSLR out to a dark sky somewhere. You can see some of that by going to Media. In a similar vein to photography, I occasionally paint, a hobby I picked up after taking a painting course during a summer in Paris in 2013. I don’t paint as often as I would like, but I find that about once per year I get the proper inspiration to paint again and make a few paintings. It’s a very enjoyable process and is completely different from my day-to-day astronomy work. I also enjoy playing piano and the challenge that comes with ‘learning’ a piece that is admittedly far above my skill level (having only ever taken 2 years of piano lessons as a kid). I occasionally work on improving my sight reading, but I mostly stick to pieces I know or the simple ones I’ve written.
Other than that, I enjoy watching movies and I’m always ready to watch a movie I haven’t seen before, especially the classics that I’ve never seen but have been on my watchlist for a long time (making slow and steady progress). I’m a huge fan of the Green Bay Packers (Go Pack Go!) and NFL football in general. I play a number of different sports throughout the year thanks to Penn State Intramurals (flag football, softball, basketball, dodgeball), but my favorite sport to play is ultimate frisbee, through the State College Ultimate League.