Profile

In my research, I simulate spacecraft entering an atmosphere, and study how its velocity and temperature are affected during the trajectory. The simulations help us to figure out how to improve spacecraft design, discover possible failure configurations and limitations. These simulations are very important since it’s very difficult and expensive to do experiments on space missions.

My typical day starts with my alarm being snoozed twice. I feed my cat Hubble, and let the dogs, Freyja and Charles, out for their morning zoomies. I have my breakfast while reading my emails. My workday consists in setting up and launching simulations, and/or plotting my data in pretty graphs to analyze the data. I might have some papers to read to be updated with the last publications. Usually, I have lunch around 1 pm. I like to watch an episode of my favorite tv show while I eat. In the afternoon, I go back to my work until 5 or 6 pm. Somedays, I have meetings as a graduate student coordinator or as a WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) coordinator. I am a feminist activist and I work very hard to make the STEM environment more open and accessible to people that identify as female. I love to donate my time to mentor future generations of scientists.

In more detail, I will use the money to create easy experiments on aerospace engineering science. I will support transportation for me and other colleagues to travel from school to school. I will support the production of materials that we will share with the students: from gadgets to informative materials.