About
Every summer during my childhood, my family and I would travel to a small lake in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, far from the glow of city lights. At night, I would lie at the end of the pier and gaze up at the crystal-clear sky above me. The band of the Milky Way stretched across my view, and occasional meteors streaked overhead.
As my fascination with observational astronomy grew, the Hubble Space Telescope began capturing incredible portraits of the universe. I pored over the fine details of these images.
Both of these experiences cemented my love for astronomy. Because you need physics to understand space, I decided that I would study the science to learn about the beauty in the cosmos around us. The laws of physics — discovered and researched on Earth — describe the colors, shapes, and patterns found across the universe.
At Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, I studied physics, earning my bachelor’s degree in the science in 2004. When I wasn’t calculating the induced electromotive force or detecting particles created as cosmic rays slam into Earth’s atmosphere, I was leading my college’s modern dance group, singing in choir (as a soprano II, if you’re curious), and writing poetry.
I spent one year in graduate school for astrophysics (at Iowa State University in Ames), but decided to leave academia to write about astronomy, space, and physics and to tell the stories of our beautiful universe. I’ve never looked back.
During more than seven years at Astronomy, I pitched, wrote, and edited feature science articles, which included checking and correcting factual content, grammar, and readability in addition to developing a comprehensive graphics package for each article. I worked closely with the Art Department to ensure the full article — including any illustrations, other graphics, or sidebar content — properly conveyed the story. I managed Astronomy’s first all-digital product, Cosmic Origins (released March 5, 2014), as Editor and oversaw all interactive content and functionality.
In my nine years as an independent science journalist and editor, I have authored a bookazine about the Moon for National Geographic, wrote about a artist at the intersection of astronomy and history also for National Geographic, walked readers through building an origami robot for Popular Science, and covered daily astronomical discoveries for Science News.
You can view my full résumé for a more formal version of my biography.