About

I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and attended public schools. When I started my undergraduate degree I was initially in the Humanities department as a international relations and public policy major, which required a foreign language track. I switched to the Mellon College of Science after one semester, but continued studying Mandarin Chinese throughout my undergraduate career. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon, I accepted a research technician position at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh in the Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapies Division. Although most of the patients that came through our lab had genetic disorders,  I attended weekly research symposiums and became acutely aware of the prevalence of environmentally caused ailments. I am passionate about complex systems and problem-solving, and decided to tackle the root of many health issues, pollution. I find the interplay between environmental change, biogeochemical cycles, and health to be excitingly complex and urgently problematic.