My junior year of high school I was dead set on becoming a biomedical engineer and going into the medical field, until I took physics. While taking physics, I had an amazing teacher who walked us through one of his research projects where we found the mass of Jupiter using it's three largest moons. That project sparked a passion in me that I did not know I had, and old memories of me watching hours of space videos as a child arose when I was working with my teacher. As I was applying to colleges, I discovered the major of astronomy & astrophysics. Before, I thought that a career in space was impossible and not something that people got paid for in the real world, until I looked into just how far a career into space can go. I am interested in a career in astronomy, more specifically dark matter and dark energy astrophysics, partly for the little girl in me who could only dream of studying space for a lifetime, but also for a large part of myself now who is still beyond excited to research the unknown. I currently work for a research lab at my school, the University of Michigan. We are currently researching the escape velocities at the edge of galaxy clusters far away to see the difference in the predicted velocity and actual velocity to help measure the universe's expansion and understand dark energy. Getting to work for such a lab inspires me every day and allows me to push myself as a person and as a student to learn things that are completely unknown. In the future, I would hope to build off of this project as a graduate student and take my knowledge of dark matter and dark energy with me into graduate school. Long term, after I graduate college in 2027, I hope to get my PhD in astrophysics with a specialty in dark matter or cosmology (as a larger scale). With about three years remaining to be 10 years from now, I would hopefully find a few post doctorate positions working with my research project, and possibly leaning into the world of data science. A great goal of mine, long term, is to work for a university and head my own research lab. I would love to pass on my knowledge to the upcoming generation of students who share my same passion while also doing the research I love every day. Getting to play a more professional role as a professor and a lab manager would be more than ideal for me 10 years from now.

Who knew youtube videos could lead to a career decision? Growing up I had wanted always to be a doctor but had a side hobby of watching HOURS of space videos on youtube, as I grew up I realized my love for science, math and engineering and tried to incorporate that into my career. I then switched to biomedical engineering as my major for some time. I did HOSA with my high school for two years (and continuing) and realized that I didn’t want to do medical. This was a big realization for me and it occurred in the perfect time. My friends and I had a playful argument over what class we’d rather sit through forever and my first answer was physics and only then did I realize how much I enjoyed the class. I did some thinking back a few years and realized how much I loved space and the sciences behind it and I never thought I could do that as a career, and so my love for astrophysics was born. I love the way physics works as a science because it does have so much math behind it. Physics, to me, is the perfect blend of engineering problem solving and looking for answers to questions we don’t even have yet. I wanted to go beyond the simple analysis of objects on Earth and designing cars to expanding life outside the universe. I can live out a dream from when I was younger and fulfill my dream now of learning space mechanics and expanding our views!