First things first: This video is old but I’ve never thought to share it and it’s a great video showcasing the Clemson University Planetarium featuring myself and my old boss: ​video here.

Secondly, my paper was accepted and published in January of this year to the Astrophysical Journal! If you have a membership you can view it here (student/institutional staff usually have memberships through the university): for IOPScience click here. If you are not a student or are not affiliated with any academic institution try ArXiv here. And if that doesn’t work, you can try directly accessing the pdf here.

If you’ve exhausted all three options to no avail and really want to read it, please contact me directly and I would be happy to send the pdf via email. 

Lastly, I took my last written qualifier today. If I pass, I will be clear to move on and continue full time with my PhD research. If I fail, I will not be pursuing a PhD and can only graduate here with a Master’s (lol, “only” – a Master’s is still an amazing accomplishment!). I find out the results next week if I passed or not. It’s going to be a looooooOOOOOOOOooooong week. 

In short, it’s been a great start to the new year for me and I hope 2019 keeps on givin’. Shortly, I will begin another stage of my research and will share it all with you as we progress. 

Best Moments of 2018:

• Finishing up the two years of full time coursework at Clemson University before fully concentrating on research
• Passing 2/3 written qualifiers on the first go around, having only one to worry about up until today.
• Submitting my first research paper as first author and getting it accepted with very minor revisions required before publication
• Traveling with my partner, Noah. From Colorado, Georgia, and Virginia to Nevada and Europe in 2019! 
• Taking time for myself, even when I felt like I needed to work until my hands fell off for the success I wanted so badly
• Dog sitting in free time – so many doggos in life and they’ve all been amazing! It’s also been great adding new regulars to the schedule
• Running the planetarium, as always. 
• Meeting my little nephew for the first time and seeing my devil of a sister be a wonderful mother.
• Having a great dog and cat and roommate and partner (and cheers to years to come!)

Goals for 2019:

• Pass the last qualifier that I took today and get started with the rest of my research projects
• Travel to Europe with Noah
• Attend the Supernova Remnants II Conference in Crete, Greece in June
• Get another paper ready for publication
• Graduate in Spring 2019 with Master’s (en route to PhD)
• Stop complaining
• Be more kind
• Do more outreach