I grew up in Pittsford, NY, a quaint suburb outside of Rochester, where people are encouraged to look up because the skies are clear. I first fell in love with astronomy as a hobby when I was forced to chart the phases of the Moon from my driveway for an 8th grade science project.
I received double Bachelor’s degrees in Physics and Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and my Ph.D. in Astronomy & Astrophysics from Harvard University in 2014. I was subsequently awarded an Einstein Postdoctoral Fellowship, which I took to the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory. I then earned a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship which I took to Northwestern University in 2017.
I am currently an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University, and partner with my research group in observational pursuit of the fastest transients in the universe. In my spare time, I like to cook, solve NY Times Crossword puzzles (but cannot get past the Wednesday ones), and watch the Food Network. I am Chinese-American and I go by she/her pronouns.
If you are interested in working as part of my group, please do not hesitate to reach out.
Recent Awards and Honors
- Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, 2022
- Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) Cottrell Scholar Award, 2022
- Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, 2021
- National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award, 2021
- National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellowship, 2018
- NASA Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2017
- CIERA Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2017
- American Physical Society Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award in Astrophysics, 2016
- Research Corporation for Science Advancement Scialog Fellow, 2016
- NASA Einstein Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2014-2017
- Edward L. Fireman Fellowship, Harvard Department of Astronomy, 2014