About Me
| Beginnings I was born and raised in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. I was raised by my dad, Jose, and my mom, Maria, along with my older brother Esteban. Along with my immediate family I have much extended family in the Los Angeles area and througout Southern California. My brother and I both attended schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District and were fortunate to be in the Magnet Program. I graduated from John Marshall High School in Los Feliz in 2006 intent on pursuing a career in science. |
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| College I went to the Massachusetts Institue of Technology where I lived in both East Campus and Bexley dorms. I majored in geoscience and graduated with my Bachelors in 2010. I then continued my undergraduate thesis on lunar rock sample 12017 as a Masters project and received that diploma in 2011. While at MIT I worked in Prof. Ben Weiss's paleomagnetism lab where I was fortunate to be involved in a sampling trip to the Vredefort Crater, South Africa. I also traveled to Aix-En-Provence, France to work in their paleomagnetism lab. I did internships at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, TX (studied volcanos on Venus with Dr. Patrick McGovern) and at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD (studied lunar surface roughness with Prof. Maria Zuber). My time at MIT ended with an extraordinary trip to the Himalaya in Northern India where I helped with mapping and sample collection on a tectonics project of Professor Oli Jagoutz. |
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| Caltech After a geophysics job abroad fell through at the last minute, I found myself unemployed at my parent's house in Los Angeles. Fortunately, the Caltech Seismology lab, which is only ~5 miles from their house, was hiring for a seismic analyst. I applied and was hired part-time. While at seismo lab I reached out to Prof. Bethany Ehlmann in planetary sciences and was hired part-time for a programming/data processing project. After working at Caltech for a few months I knew I wanted to continue there for grad school, so I applied and was accepted. My five PhD projects have all involved Mars. I used satellite data to determine the mineral composition of the Mars surface as well as studying a Martian meteorite to figure out Mars' magnetic past and its potential biogenicity. As a Caltech grad student I have been fortunate to take many field trips including to Turks and Caicos, Japan (x2), Iceland, Hawaii, Canada, Washington, Paris, Chile, Antarctica, and all over the SW US. |
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| Post-PhD In 2018 I relocated to Flagstaff, AZ for a Postoc with Prof. Christopher Edwards at Northern Arizona University. There I continued remote sensing Mars research with many other interesting projects mixed in. In 2021 I left NAU to start my career in industry by moving to a remote sensing scientist position at Orbital Sidekick. With our hyperspectral satellite constellation I work on projects related to vegetation health and speciation and mineralogy. Other In my free time I love to hang out with my friends and family. I'll take any reason to go outside. My hobbies include hiking, backpacking, camping, rock climbing, crafting, and reading. There are so many adventures to be had in Flagstaff, if you are ever in the area please contact me! |
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