Bio

I almost never check LinkedIn! Email me through my website :-) I am an Assistant Professor of Physics and Core Faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of New Hampshire My passions are early universe cosmology and increasing equity and equal opportunity in physics and astronomy. As a theoretical physicist who happens to be a member of multiple underrepresented groups (URGs), these two passions go hand in hand. My research currently focuses primarily on inflation, reheating (the era immediately after inflation) and an exciting hypothesized dark matter candidate, the axion. I am especially interested in intersections of ideas from condensed matter and particle physics and how they can inform our work in cosmology. My work requires concepts from General Relativity, quantum field theory (in curved spacetimes), and multiple length scales in astrophysics. I believe that calculus is fun and that theory should be driven by observables when possible. But, who doesn't love a good Lagrangian? I also work in social epistemology, considering the implications for knowledge when Black and indigenous people are excluded from science. In 2021 I released my first book, The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred. It’s been a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, the PEN/EO Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, and the New England Book Award. TDC was also named a best of 2021 by Smithsonian Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist. My writing appears in American Scientist, Scientific American, Physics World, and New Scientist where I have a monthly column. When I'm not doing research and writing, I volunteer my time as an unofficial adviser and mentor for URG undergraduates and graduate students around the country.