Hi everyone! I’m a senior at Wellesley studying astrophysics with a minor in Russian. I grew up in Pennsylvania and spent my last year of high school in Hamburg, Germany as an exchange student.

In addition to my physics research on black holes, I’ve worked on a wide variety of projects which blend education, policy, social justice, and game development. Last year I designed and created a game about space exploration for 3-6 year-olds on Android. Over the summer I spoke at a conference in Munich predicting how crowdfunding will impact astronomy, looking specifically at changes in priorities, policies, and the need for adaptive outreach. I’m currently working on a project to identify ethnocentric stereotyping through the use of accents in Disney’s animated films and discover whether or not foreign language dubs do the same. Most recently over winter break I studied the equitability of resettlement and education programs for refugee and migrant populations and their new host communities.

I’m interested in how codesign may elevate the agency of populations we traditionally regard as passive, such as the target audience of a game or students for whom curricula is developed. Outside of academics, I’m a Wikipedian, I sing and play the bodhran, and am a member of Wellesley’s Shakespeare Society. I’m looking forward to our collaborations this semester!