Science, and space, in particular, have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. Whenever I had a spare minute as a child, I’d be reading about the structure of the solar system and finding out how to become an astronaut so that I could go and explore the cosmos myself. Growing up in an all-female household, I learned very quickly that there is nothing in life women can’t achieve once they’ve set their mind on something and I wanted to learn everything I could about science and space.
My curiosity and passion for science stayed with me into adulthood and I completed a Physics with Astrophysics degree. During my studies, I was continually inspired by watching women like Christina Koch launch to the International Space Station, but my focus had shifted from wanting to go to space myself to helping others get there.
I learned how to code for the first time at university and was amazed to learn about the software used to send people to space and the advances being made in the 21st century. I really struggled with it at first, but by the end of my final year, I’d been able to build scripts that created fluid dynamical simulations of stellar surfaces and modeled the motion of comets. I found further motivation and inspiration in Dr. Katie Bouman and her team that helped researchers take the first-ever picture of a black hole, and from then on I was hooked. Learning to code was a skill I never knew I’d develop, and one that I now felt was key to my future. I knew coding had lots of applications outside of astrophysics and I wanted to take my new knowledge into the world and see what I could do with it.