I have the rare pleasure of remembering how my early thoughts made me feel. Sitting on my living room couch watching NOVA, the screen a swirl of enchanting colors evoking deep space, I felt each fingertip tingle as if sparks were about to appear. Since then I have been fascinated by space and the limitless possibilities of the universe and have been preparing to add my own questions to the exploration of tomorrow. My dream is to observe and theorize about our physical world as an astrophysicist, a field that still evokes those early sparks in my fingertips, causing me to dream and wonder. I am passionate about everything to do with space and our relationship to the world we live in. I want to contribute to both observational and theoretical astrophysics research, potentially in high-energy astrophysics and cosmology. My astrophysics aspirations are fueled by my love of space and physics and inspired by my hometown of Pasadena’s rich astronomical history. My interests in astrophysics are broad, though I am currently most interested in researching black holes and dark matter, as well as the quasars powered by the accreting supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. I am also interested in Tidal Disruption Events and the recent JWST discovery of the Little Red Dots. I hope to participate in a wide range of research experiences that allow me to dive deeper into the topics that cause me to wonder. My dream is to work at NASA JPL one day and be a small part of the groundbreaking research happening there daily. In addition to research, I also hope to work in academia and teach the next generation of physicists and astronomers, sparking a passion for and love of space. I am also interested in space policy because astrophysics for me is not an individualistic pursuit, but rather a way to better understand and help our world as we face the future. My choice to attend a women’s liberal arts college to pursue astrophysics has allowed me to continue to nurture my diverse interests and support other women pursuing space science. Collaboration has allowed me to become a more informed and innovative thinker. During high school I participated in the Inspirit AI program, where I collaborated with mentor Roochi Shah of Carnegie Mellon and an international cohort, training AI models to search imbalanced classes of data from the NASA Kepler space telescope to detect and characterize exoplanets. The experience culminated in a research symposium, where we presented our findings to faculty at Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, MIT, and Stanford. Through this experience, I learned how to solve a real-world problem with a diverse, multi-regional team of students. Currently, at Wellesley, my spectroscopy research team is focused on revitalizing a spectroscope to install on our 0.7-meter PlaneWave telescope to do spectroscopy of galaxies, nebulae, and transients such as supernovae. As this project is a continuation of research started by past students, I have learned the importance of keeping an updated record of findings and insights. There have also been lessons on the importance of small victories when participating in research. Collaboration was key in both research experiences, with various perspectives providing crucial insights and leading to findings. I am also a part of the Wellesley Extragalactic Explorers research group, using astronomical Python libraries for coding tasks and analyzing galaxy and star cluster data from Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. These research experiences have all sparked my passion and continue to excite me every day, advancing the astrophysics aspirations of my childhood.