I like to call the brown fleck in my left iris a mark of my endless curiosity for the universe. My optometrist likes to call it retinal sun damage.
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When the 2017 solar eclipse washed over the Pennsylvanian sky during my high school marching band practice, I found myself without a pair of eclipse glasses. Though my interest in astronomy had been fleeting until then, I knew I’d be remiss to not look up just once—or twice—or ten times.
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Over the next few weeks, I watched a brown freckle spawn in one of my always-blue eyes, and a trip to the eye doctor certified that my affinity for the cosmos might require some more expert supervision.
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During my bachelor’s at George Washington University tacked on an astrophysics minor to my journalism degree, leading me to a science writing internship at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center after my sophomore year.
Now, in my master’s in science communication at UC Santa Cruz, I continue honing my narrative skills by writing for publications including Science, Live Science, MIT Technology Review, Eos, and Mongabay.
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My studies are supported through the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, which has awarded me the 2024 Graduate Fellowship for Physical Sciences, as well as UCSC's Astrobiology Communication Fellowship.
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As I continue chronicling the universe’s biggest looming questions, I realize that my passion for storytelling and my compulsive need to look up into the unknown aren’t just compatible—they’re inextricable. When I face my next fateful eclipse in 2044, I hope not only to finally have my own pair of glasses, but to use my writing as a lens for the rest of the world to see it, too.
