Did you always know that you wanted to be a Space Physicist?
No actually! I went on a bit of a journey to end up where I am now. When I was in high school, I wanted to be a medical doctor, which led me to take my first physics class during my final year. I found the class fascinating but didn’t think much more about it until a few years later. I abandoned the idea of becoming an MD after a few incidents made me realize I don’t have the stomach for it. I went on to study journalism in college before rediscovering my love for physics when I took a class to fulfill a general education requirement. From there I fell in love with the natural world. There was beauty in the reflection of the sunlight, magic in planes traveling through the air, and romance in the stars. I have always been particularly concerned with climate change which led me, along with my love of astronomy, to study plasma physics in the hope of applying it to nuclear fusion energy power production research. Plasma is the fourth state of matter, which is created when electrons separate from the nucleus of atoms, which happens in very energetic systems, like on the sun and in theoretical fusion power plants. But once again I was steered along a different path as my study of plasma led me to space physics!
What is your research focus?
In my PhD I studied ground magnetic field perturbations caused by the interaction between the Sun and the Earth’s magnetic field. Particularly, I used machine learning techniques to forecast these perturbations in a variety of ways, and then use those models to investigate the complex, non-linear interaction that can lead to large and destructive events. My work here at NASA is related. I am lucky enough to be a part of the Artificial Intelligence Modeling Framework for Advancing Heliophysics Research (AIMFAHR) project, which is seeking to combine the many machine learning models that have been used in the heliophysics community into a unified model starting at the Sun, going all the way through the magnetosphere and finishing on the ground. Right now I have two main focuses: the first is working on updating and improving a machine learning model that forecasts currents in Earth’s ionosphere, a layer of the upper atmosphere which has a high density of charged particles. My other focus is finding the best method for outputting probabilities for these machine learning models instead of the deterministic ones that are more common in the field. This will turn our models into ones that look more like those used in weather predictions, which is important for people who use them to prevent some of the damage that can occur during large space weather events!
What advice would you give your younger self?
I think the main professional thing I would tell myself is to get involved in research earlier. The difference between the in-classroom education you get as a physics undergraduate and performing research is immense. Had I started doing it earlier I may have worried much less about the hundredth’s decimal of my GPA and just enjoyed more of my early physics education. Personally, I’d tell myself to learn how to rest. An underrated skill that would have helped me a lot in my earlier years.
What is one of your favorite moments in your career so far?
The first time I saw something I wrote in a published work. It was the first publication during my PhD, and I was a co-author on my advisor’s paper comparing machine learning architecture’s ability to predict ground magnetic field perturbations. In the methods and results section, I wrote about the model I designed and how it performed. I remember when the paper got accepted for publication and came out. It was a Friday morning during the pandemic, so I was working from home in my pajamas when I got the notification. I saw my name in the author list, and for the probably 15th time read the paper from start to finish. When I got to the sections I wrote, I froze. It felt like I had finally made it as a professional scientist. It was one of the first moments where I thought “this is actually happening; I can actually do this”. I’ve published plenty of work since then, but nothing will feel the same way those few paragraphs did.
What do you enjoy the most about your job?
There are a lot of things I enjoy about my job, but by far the ones that gets me up in the morning are those tiny little moments of success that come throughout the day. Whether it’s fixing a problem with my code, making a tiny discovery in the data, or finally figuring out how to make something work. Brainstorming sessions is another aspect. I really enjoy. Getting to work through problems and ideas out loud with my colleagues makes the work fun in a way that isn’t always present when working by yourself. There is also the freedom I have as a researcher to dive down the occasional rabbit hole to fully understand something, and then apply that understanding to my future work.
What are your future research interests and goals?
This is a really hard question to answer, there are so many things I want to learn and study. I’m extremely interested in the application of Machine Learning methods to a variety of prediction tasks. What we are working on now with AIMFAHR is an example of that, and it’s something I’d like to see to fruition. I think it could be monumentally important, not only to the space physics community, but to the many operators that require space weather data. It has become harder and harder to ignore some of the global challenges that we face as a society, particularly the impacts of climate change, so if they can be shown to improve upon current models or methods, applying machine learning methods to efforts focused on mitigation or a more detailed understanding of climate change would be a fulfilling thing to work on.
What do you like to do in your free time?
It really depends on the day but I have quite a few hobbies. I’m a big fantasy and sci-fi reader. Recently, I’ve been reading Katabasis by RF Kuang, which has felt very appropriate post grad school. I love to run, and since moving to DC it’s been a great way to get to know the city a little better.
I never say no to an overly complicated board game that takes some hours to play with my friends. On that note, after enjoying it passively for some years, I’ve finally gotten my friends to start our first Dungeons and Dragons campaign which has been even more fun than I thought it would be. During the pandemic I got on the trend of baking bread which I still enjoy (nothing beats fresh baked bread). I used to play Ultimate Frisbee quite often but have recently started playing my favorite sport to watch, soccer (go Arsenal!). I also love watching movies, binging the occasional TV show, and just spending time with my friends and family.
Finally, and most recently, it may be due to my getting older, but I have recently discovered the joy of an afternoon nap which my cats are more than happy to join me in.
Published Date: .
Hometown:
Philadelphia, PA, United States
Undergraduate Degrees:
B.A. Political Science & Communications, West Chester University of Pennsylvania, West Chester, PA
B.S. Physics, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Post-graduate Degree:
Ph.D. Physics. & Astronomy, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH