My interest is science began with a great high school biology teacher and I found my way to marine science a few years later. For my undergrad, I completed joint B.A.s with the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and Columbia University. I was politically active on campus and was introduced to Environmental Science through a sustainable development class. For my senior thesis in Environmental Science, I was matched with a paleoceanography group where I learned about how to use boron isotopes to reconstruct pH between the Last Glacial Maximum roughly 19-23,000 years ago and the current Holocene period.
After graduating, I went to Israel for a year to teach English in an elementary school in Jerusalem with simultaneously working in an organic geochemistry lab at Hebrew University. This experience cemented my interest in paleoceanography, but also my love for teaching.
Now in my 4th year as a PhD student in Rutgers working with Dr. Yair Rosenthal, my interest is in the Holocene. Our observational records of climate are too short to understand how systems interact with different background conditions. Using geochemical archives, we can extend these records to learn what causes change in local and global climate. My research focuses on the Chilean Patagonia region shifts in the South Westerly Winds and Antarctic Circumpolar Current, land-ocean and ocean-atmosphere interactions, and possible connection with the Southern Ocean. At Rutgers, I have also continued pursuing my interest in teaching through involvement with the TA Project and am now a fellow at the Rutgers Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
Outside of research, I love to cook and travel. At this point I have been to about 60 countries and hope to add a few more this summer!