Imm Astronomy Scholarship

The Big Dipper. A constellation we are shown and taught about as we are children. We are told that if we look up at the night sky at the perfect time, and just focus a little, we can see the pot-like formation shining in the sky. Later, we get introduced to much more: Andromeda, Ursa Major and Minor, the twelve zodiacs. All a bunch of little drawings made up of stars in the night sky. Some leave it at that and just take the occasional glance into our universe to look at its little pieces of art, and yet they don't ever wonder more. Galileo, Newton, da Vinci, Einstein, Hawking, and so many others that we are taught about took it a step further and looked into it. Figured out the story behind those stars and their formations. People have been studying space for centuries, and yet, we still know nothing. We have Einstein's theory of relativity, the Big Bang theory, the knowledge of nuclear fusion, and the effects of gravity. Still, even with all of that, we barely even scratched the surface. We don't know what exactly happens at the end of a black hole's life, if they ever do truly die. We are still learning about the warping of space-time due to objects' gravitational pull, and whether the concept of wormholes or the multiverse is even possible in our world. There are so many what-ifs and questions left unanswered that are unlikely to be solved in my lifetime, but I want to be a part of the journey. What caused those stars, what caused our galaxy, our universe, or even us? What is currently happening inside our expansive universe? Billions of questions, billions of possible unsolvable answers. Although it's impossible to know unless one tries. I want to be the one who tries, for years, to figure out exactly how one thing works. Have desks and tables overflowing with papers lined with mathematical formulas and various proofs to explain my work, hundreds of tries just in an attempt to get one thing right. I want to live through those years of frustration, hopefully working with a group of like-minded individuals with the equipment to aid us in our findings. Although that stress and dead-ends will be worth it. To find the answer to any of the universe's biggest questions is my dream. That is why I'm majoring in astronomy. I want to be the one who discovers what exactly happens in a black hole, what exactly is going on beyond the edge of our expanding universe, and what exactly it is expanding into. To learn the secrets of our universe and understand exactly how we got here and what's to come. My ideal job is what I am now, a scholar. But instead of learning through textbooks and lectures, I learn through research, simulations, and experiments. Ten years from now, I am to be a research scientist, whether that's at an observatory, a space agency, or a leading university. Anywhere that allows me to be a key member of a team actively contributing to these discoveries, and, just maybe, that will include mentoring the next generation of scientists who will embody the passion I exhibit now.

Last summer, my best friend and I went camping in the middle of Oregon. 60 miles from the nearest city, with barren desert surrounding us in every direction, we had the perfect view of the night sky. Through my telescope, we saw the spirals of the Triangulum and Pinwheel Galaxies, the thousands of stars glimmering in Globular clusters, and ethereal wisps of nebulae stretching across the eyepiece. As we marveled at the sheer scale and elegance of the universe, I couldn’t help but think, “yes, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.” Astronomy has been a core part of my identity for my entire life. My parents decorated my four-year-old birthday with inflatable planets hanging from our kitchen ceiling—only for me to be confused when Pluto was included but Eris and Ceres were missing. When I was in fifth grade, I got my first telescope, and I finally saw Jupiter’s moons and Saturn’s rings after reading about them for years. And in middle school, my enjoyment for astronomy broadened to include math and physics as I used Khan Academy and YouTube to explore the reasons behind all of the astronomy facts I used to take for granted. I just finished my second year studying Engineering Physics at Colorado School of Mines. Studying physics has taught me that the beauty of the universe isn’t just restricted to astronomy: this past semester, my Partial Differential Equations class has allowed me to understand the underlying structure and incredible interconnectedness behind many physical laws, ranging from music theory to why electrons create atomic orbitals when they’re bound in atoms. In addition to my physics major, I’ve been minoring in math and chemistry to better understand science on every scale, from quantum mechanics to organic chemistry to complex analysis. And in each of these classes, the same beautiful structures that are so apparent in astronomy continue to reveal themselves. Following my desire to share this incredible unity of nature with others, I restarted the Mines Astronomy Club and ran it for three semesters. In addition to hosting star parties and setting up telescopes on campus to show many students the Moon and Jupiter, through the club I’ve given numerous lectures, ranging from the planetary status of Pluto to the existence of aliens to mathematical reason for the existence of atomic orbitals. One of my lectures, “Chords of Light”, covered spectroscopy and its relevance to astrophysics, and was so well-received I was invited to present it to a large audience at the 2025 Society of Physics Students Congress in Denver last October. Ultimately, I want to pursue a PhD in Physics or Astronomy and learn as much about science as fundamentally and intuitively as possible. In ten years, I would like to be working as a researcher and professor for a university. While I don’t know exactly what area of science I want to study yet (it’s all too interesting!), I know for a fact that I want to teach students about physics, math, and astronomy. It’s hard not to look up into the night sky and not be inspires, and I want to show students that understanding the math and physics behind it all only increases the sense of awe and wonder. I want to take the transcendent experience of observing a planet or a nebula and bring it to the classroom, so when students deeply understand Euler’s formula or special relativity or stellar spectroscopy, they too think, “yes, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.”

The comfort film that I return to every time I’m feeling ill is likely not what you would expect. Instead of a classic Disney movie or a 90s comedy, I turn to the same documentary about researchers examining the health of kelp forests that I have watched since I was young. My favorite childhood memories are of watching documentaries with my parents and younger brother. They always left me with questions and new fascinations that I could spend weeks exploring. The problem-solving aspect of research was incredibly appealing to me. I believe there is no greater thrill than solving a problem you have been working on for a long time or being the first person to know something. As someone who loves working endlessly on puzzles and inquiries, it has always been clear to me that research is exactly what I want to do. In October of my sophomore year of high school, while studying for my Science Olympiad team’s tryout exams, I came across an image of Herbig-Haro Object 24. A delicate jet cut across the center of the image, obscured by monstrous dust clouds. Its effect was something closely akin to those of the masterpieces made by Klimt, Van Gogh, and Vermeer that I had been studying in my art class. This deep-sky object set in motion my fascination with astronomy. I continued studying astronomy while competing in Science Olympiad, and out of the diverse topics covered, it became apparent to me that stellar astrophysics, specifically variable stars and stellar evolution, was the most fascinating to me. The potential information about stellar properties and evolution that can be gained from variable stars is incredibly exciting. I loved examining the unique behaviors of all kinds of variable stars and the ways that some of them had been used in fields like cosmology. In my first year at Berkeley, I continued to explore my interest in variable stars through my work as a mentee in the Undergraduate Lab at Berkeley. I designed a project for my research group that aimed to create a machine learning model that could identify R Coronae Borealis variable stars. I selected R Coronae Borealis stars because they are exceptionally rare, with only about 150 currently identified. While my year in the program has ended, I am continuing to work with my group to perfect our model and hopefully publish our work so that others may benefit from our findings. It’s exciting to know that I may be able to identify new specimens of a scarce variable star and provide a new source of data for future work. Being able to design my own project while still receiving guidance from a mentor has been an incredible experience and has further strengthened my desire to go into astronomy research. After I finish my undergraduate degree, I hope to go to graduate school and earn a PhD in astrophysics. I want to be a professor and do research relating to stellar astrophysics. I want to continue to investigate variable stars and extract new information about the way stars evolve. I also want to work as a professor to help shape the next generation of astrophysicists and inspire them in the way that my professors have. After finishing my first year of university and participating in ULab, I know that astrophysics can be overwhelming at times, whether it be a difficult problem set or code that takes ages to debug. Having the support of mentors has helped me overcome the challenges I have encountered, and in ten years, I hope to be doing the same for other young astrophyscists.

Even as a young girl, space always piqued my interest. One of my earliest memories is from pre-k, when my mom was going to come into class and read a book from my collection at home. The night before, she had me pick out one of my books from my collection. Without hesitation, I picked There’s No Place Like Space by Tish Rabe, a book I frequently read at home. I remember my mom coming in and reading it to my class the following day. In elementary school, we had our first space unit in second grade, which perfectly coincided with the total lunar eclipse that occurred in December of 2010. We learned about the seasons, the elliptical orbit of the Earth around the sun, and eclipses. When I went home and talked about my day with my parents, I had even more questions about why these events happen, to which my dad directed me to his National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky, which had a lot of technical information but also included pictures, which were more fascinating to 8-year-old me.  As I got older, I still continued to have my passion for space, but my hope started to dwindle after hearing over and over about how opportunities in astronomy were too difficult for me. I tried to lean into other career opportunities, but I didn’t want to abandon my hope for astronomy and astrophysics. When applying to colleges, I wanted to be a physics major and do my concentration in astrophysics. As the start date for my first fall term approached, I started to fear that all of the noise I'd heard in years past was true, and I doubted myself. I changed my major to undeclared for my first year. I took coursework in biology and physics my freshman year while also completing general education requirements. There was a strong pull towards physics, but it was still daunting. After completing research experiences in biology during my sophomore year and even declaring a major in biology, I started to miss physics more, and I wanted to go back. I made the jump and declared physics as a major once again, and I had the task of catching up in my coursework. It has been very tough, but I have been successful. I am currently doing my co-op experience, part of Drexel’s curriculum, researching astrophysics and cosmology, utilizing data from the Dark Energy Survey within Drexel’s Department of Physics.  One of my favorite aspects of physics is the way it makes me think. The thought process never truly stops, whether I am working on a problem set or in my co-op experience. “Why is this pendulum moving this way? What can gravitational lensing tell us? Where could other carbon-based life forms be in the universe?” are all thoughts that allow me to think deeper at the physical properties that define the way the world works. As a result, I have an interest in physics and astronomy that grows daily.  I have two more years of undergrad left before moving on to graduate school, where I hope to do a Ph.D. in physics and study astronomy and astrophysics. After that, the ideal job for me would be researching exoplanets for potential signs of life at NASA. I attended an event at a local museum in Philadelphia regarding astrobiology, and it fueled even more questions in my head that I would love to find answers to, whether I read about the answers in a paper or I discover them myself.

My fascination with space began in elementary school, when I read a book titled Why Is Snot Green? Despite its crude title (highly appealing to my eight year old self), the book was highly informative. It was set in a question-and-answer format, with two characters: a young boy who would ask questions and an old man who would answer them. The topics jumped around according to the boy’s train of thought, but one exchange between the two characters wormed its way into my brain (through the nasal cavity) and never left. The boy asked the man what would happen if one was to go into space without a space suit on. The man replied that they would freeze and burn simultaneously. I was blown away. What kind of place could make someone freeze and burn at the same time? It sounded like something fantastical, not something that could exist in the real world. It felt like something that could only be true in the pages of one of my fantasy novels. This sparked a relentless curiosity within me. Everything I learned about space only intrigued me more. The idea that the universe is expanding, driven by a force we hardly understand, is exhilarating. This challenges our very understanding of physics, of gravity even. Now, as an undergraduate student studying astrophysics, I have immersed myself in courses and research that explores these mind-boggling phenomena. My coursework has provided me with a solid understanding of the fundamental principles of physics and astronomy, which I can then in turn apply to the research that I conduct. This past semester, I explored the composition of dust in protoplanetary disks in T Tauri stars with Dr. Nuria Calvet at the University of Michigan. Being able to use actual data to find the real composition of an actual star was such a rewarding experience. Taking everything I have learned thus far and making an actual finding, an actual contribution to the scientific world, felt like the experience of a lifetime. This semester’s worth of research has made me incredibly confident that I am in the correct field. With my undergraduate degree, I intend to apply to graduate programs where I can conduct research, and eventually even teach at a university myself. I want to immerse myself in academia and research. In ten years, I envision myself as a professor at a leading university. I will be conducting cutting-edge research on dark matter and dark energy. I will be teaching curious and passionate undergraduates and sparking their own journeys with astronomy. As a woman of color in STEM, I am all too aware of the underrepresentation of minority groups in the sciences. I hope that my presence in this field– and maybe someday, my presence as a professor– will show other young women that they have a place studying astronomy. I am committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive environment in academia: celebrating diversity and ensuring that every voice is given space. Diversity drives innovation. With the support of this scholarship, I hope to continue my studies and work towards a future where I can make a difference both in our galaxy and in the lives of those on Earth.