Tell us something about where you grew up.

I grew up in the suburbs of Illinois about an hour northwest of Chicago! Everything’s pretty flat there, so I had never seen a mountain myself until a trip my family took to Colorado over the summer of 2019. I came back to CWRU that next Fall and immediately changed my major to geology!

What do you like about the EEPS Dept?

There’s really so much I could say here, but overall I would say the community. The professors are so helpful and accommodating of all students, which really matters to me. I also love the feeling of tight-knit community that comes from being a much smaller STEM department at such a large STEM school, I’ve made friends with every other EEPS major I’ve met!

What’s something you don’t know about or how to do, but would like to learn?

Something that’s been on my list for a while has been learning how to play the banjo, but I would need to get a banjo to do that.

Tell us about your senior research thesis.

I’m working on my senior thesis with Dr. Ralph Harvey and I’m looking at microtektites, which are little spheres of the Earth’s crust that has previously been sent into orbit from a meteorite impact. When the microtektites came back down through the atmosphere, they cooled so fast they formed these small, glassy spheres that are less than 1 mm in size. I’m going through spoonfuls of sand samples from Antarctica and picking out these tiny perfect spheres so we can further analyze them, a bit like finding a needle in a haystack!

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I spend a solid portion of my spare time getting naps in wherever I can, but I also really enjoy watching movies (especially dark comedies), making earrings out of air dry clay and things I find around the house, and using exclamation marks!!!

What are you enthused about for your future?

I’m excited to start looking for work in geology and being able to take my education on environmental consciousness out into the workplace. I’m also hoping I’ll be able to adopt a dog once I have the financial stability for it, and then maybe a banjo!