Brief Biographical Sketch:

I am currently a 2nd year PhD student at MIT in the department of physics, division of astronomy. Here at MIT I work on telescopes. The goal of my research is to get the best possible images of objects in the sky by ensuring that the telescopes we use to take those pictures are properly aligned. I do this by calculating how blurry or misshapen images taken with a telescope are, and then I figure out which lenses and mirrors need to be shifted in order to make the image right.

Before I came to MIT, I was an undergraduate at Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) where I majored in astrophysics and mathematics. While I was there I did research on pulsars, stars that have supernova’ed and now spin as fast as a blender, beaming light at us with each rotation.

I very much enjoy teaching (otherwise I wouldn’t be spending my Sundays doing it). During my four years at F&M I was a teaching assistant for three observational astronomy classes, two physics labs, and a physics writing class. I additionally taught a semester of science to second graders. Last fall at MIT I was a teaching assistant for an observational astronomy course where students got to go out to Wallace Observatory and conduct their own research projects. These teaching experiences have shown me the value of small class sizes and personalized student attention, which is why I have limited the maximum size of this class to 22 students.

When I’m not working or teaching, I enjoy hiking, sailing, and other outdoor activities.

Past Classes