![]() My interests have always been centered on astronomy. As child, I was fascinated by the night sky. However, I spent the first three years of my college career studying to be a high school chemistry teacher. I eventually realized that I would not be really happy unless I was pursuing my first love of astronomy. I relocated to Champaign, Illinois five years ago, and began taking classes at Parkland College, a great community college in Champaign. Two years ago, I transferred the UIUC, and have loved every second of it. Physics is a lot of hard work, but it's very rewarding, and I've never regretted pursuing it. In the last year, I have become very interested in the juxtaposition of astronomy and particle physics. Last semester I took a class on subatomic particle physics, and did a research project on the final run of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) that was run out of what was once an old mine in northern Minnesota. I am currently deciding which graduate schools to apply to in light of my current interests. I began my research as an undergraduate in the summer of 2009. I worked with Professor Leslie Looney and graduate student Jonathan Seale at UIUC studying massive young stellar objects (YSOs) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Specifically, I was working on analyzing absorption spectra of YSOs and trying to determine the composition of the ices surrounding them. I am continuing with research this summer here in Bozeman by studying a star a little bit closer to us. Studying solar physics provides a unique insight into the dynamics of stellar astronomy, and I hope to use this information as a spring board into other areas of astrophysics. As a last note, the love of my life would never forgive me if I forgot to mention him - Dallas the cat, who has stuck with me through thick and thin, which may or may not only be because I keep feeding him. ![]() |