About Me

Education: I am an international undergraduate student at Westminster College, Utah. I was born and raised in Lima, Peru and decided to move to Salt Lake City to pursue a Bachelor of Science in a liberal arts college because I like collaborative and hands-on learning environments. I am currently an honors physics and math student with an emphasis in data science. This experience has taught me how to be an independent thinker, respect learning as a process itself, and constantly ask questions to further my knowledge.

Research Interests: I want to pursue a PhD in experimental astrophysics. I am particularly interested in researching how black holes and dark matter affect galaxy evolution.

Publications:

Research

Using Astronomical CCD Imagery Techniques for the Studye of Urban Light Domes at a Small College
On the summer of 2018, I worked on a computing research project at Westminster College. Our objective was to create an image processing pipeline that could take CCD images of the entire night sky and plot its levels of sky brightness.
Github link: CCD imaging technique in Python

Space Telescope Science Institute Internship
During the summer of 2019, I was an intern for the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. For this project, I worked with the institute’s web development team under the guidance of Matt Scilipoti to create a computer-accessible application programming interface (API) that will allow scientists and the public to utilize the observation schedules of the Hubble Space Telescope. In addition to creating this publicly-available API, I designed a web application, Space Telescope Live, that makes calls to the API and retrieves information about Hubble’s current observations.
Web application link: Space Telescope Live

Community

Teaching: I have been both a math tutor and a teacher assistant. I have tutored Multivariate Calculus twice, helping my tutees pass the class from an incomplete grade to a B. I was a TA for both Introduction to Algebra and Mathematical Methods of Physics. This experience allowed me to provide valuable feedback for students and help them conceptualize physics in a mathematical concept.

Outreach: Thanks to the mathematics department at Westminster College, I was able to tutor middle and high school students from East High, Utah. This experience was very empowering. Math is often presented as a challenging course, discouraging many students. Using both my spanish skills and my sense of humor, I was able to connect with many students and encourage them to keep trying.

Equity & Inclusion: Apart from my academic interests, I serve in several leadership positions that allow me to promote minority representation and respect. At my school, I am a resident advisor and have been involved in numerous clubs. Thanks to these experiences, I have witnessed the value of encouraging people to pursue their goals regardless of their background or identity. My aim is to one day be a voice for women and people of color within academia because everyone deserves the opportunity to exploit their own curiosity.