Education Information

I am currently working as the Associate Director, Strategic Partnerships, Grants and Awards at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. I help facilitate Perimeter’s incredible mission connecting researchers and students in theoretical physics with new partners and collaborators across the world.

In 2022-23 I was the project manager for the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst project (CHIME/FRB). In this role I facilitated, managed, and coordinated the research and operations of CHIME/FRB, including the construction of three new “outrigger” telescopes to create a North American CHIME interferometer for localizing new FRBs.

From November 2020 to July 2022, I worked in a dual role as a Veni Fellow at the University of Amsterdam, and as the Assistant Project Manager in the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst project (CHIME/FRB). In my fellowship time, I researched the origins of Fast Radio Bursts and how to detect them with new radio telescopes. Within CHIME/FRB I helped facilitate all the amazing science of the CHIME team.

I began my Veni in 2018 at the UvA Anton Pannekoek Institute. From 2016 to 2018 I worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Dr. Joeri van Leeuwen at ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, where I helped commission the Apertif system on the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope.

I completed my PhD in astrophysics at Swinburne University of Technology in the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing (CAS) in November 2015; I began in August, 2012.

I completed my undergraduate work at Carleton College in Minnesota, USA in 2012. I studied Physics and Math and completed a BA Physics with a strong focus on liberal arts. At Carleton I worked with Dr. Joel Weisberg investigating pulsar polarization. This work took me and Joel to the CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science (CASS) center in Sydney during the summers. At CASS I worked with Dr. Simon Johnston and Dr. George Hobbs on pulsar polarization and pulsar timing.

In 2011, I spent one semester at the University of Sydney in the third year physics program. During this time I worked with Dr. Bryan Gaensler, researching the magnetic field of the galaxy and turbulence in the interstellar medium.

Before college I was a normal person who loved astronomy in Portland, Oregon, USA. I participated as a contestant and judge in local, and state level science fairs. Work on infrared studies of local galaxy clusters took me to the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in 2007 where I won the Bok Second Prize. I also participated in the Rose City Astronomers amateur astronomy club, and held telescope nights for my school.

More General Information

I grew up in Portland, Oregon, where it is rarely this sunny. I have always loved to read, and typically read between 35 and 50 books a year. You can follow some of my reviews on Goodreads. I have been fluent in French since I was 7 and trips to France were some of the highlights of my childhood. During my time in the Netherlands I worked on my Dutch enough to follow along in my community orchestra and carry a conversation. I wanted to go to space from when I was 9 until I was 12 (when I saw Apollo 13) and I've wanted to be an astronomer ever since. 

These days you can find me in Kitchener, Ontario, mostly getting muddy at a dog park or curling up on the couch with a good book or video game.

More specific information