I am a senior (Class of 2009) at Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, PA) majoring in physics and minoring in educational studies where I am also a four-year varsity softball player. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, I chose Swarthmore because of the great education, the opportunity to play varsity athletics and its beautiful campus. I am a member of SWAP: Swarthmore Women in Astronomy and Physics and participated in the EYH: Expanding Your Horizons Conference for middle school aged girls. This conference tried to expand girls' interest in science and math through interactions with female professors and other female scientists. During the summers of 2007 and 2008 I worked at Oberlin College (Oberlin, OH) in a physics research lab where we studied Fe3O4 (Iron Oxide) magnetic nanoparticles.
I student taught (Spring 2009) at Ridley High School (Folsom, PA) where I was in charge of two 9th grade introductory physics courses. Ridley, which is home to about 2200 students, is a large diverse public high school. The style of physics education at Ridley HS is unlike most schools. Ridley utilizes the modeling method where students learn physics through hands on experience rather than through straight textbook reading. Students investigate and prove the laws of physics from first-hand experience rather than simply completing recipe labs. For more information on modeling see Arizona State University's modeling webpage.
Next fall I will be attending The Graduate School at The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH) in Nuclear Engineering.