Left with the duty of deciding between culinary school and formal scientific education, I chose to keep cooking a hobby I enjoy rather than a job I might not (I still enjoy cooking). I attended Saint Joe's as a chemistry major, played guitar in a band, spent 5 months in Spain, hosted a college radio show, had a dance party or two, worked hard, and fell in love with the hunt for discovery. After graduating from SJU (THWND), I immediately moved to Nashville to join the chemistry department at Vanderbilt University in Dr. Sandra Rosenthal's lab where I earned my doctorate, bought my first house, and realized that I wasn't done making incredible friends. After leaving Dixie, I took some time to travel Asia with one of my brothers, and settled in to life as a Virginian. There, I began a position as a postdoc at the University of Virginia in Dr. Josh Choi's lab, where I studied the exciting material class known as perovskites for application in space travel.