About Me

Welcome to my website! I am a third year graduate student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), studying astrophotonic instrumentation.

Samantha in front of the Lick Observatory telescopes

Journey so far...

I am originally from Boston, MA. Go Sox!!

I earned my B.A. in physics with honors from Grinnell College in 2023 and my M.S. in astronomy and astrophysics from UCLA in 2026.

My journey with astronomy really began with a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) summer program with the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium (KNAC), hosted at Wellesley College. There I had the opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Kim McLeod to plan, conduct, analyze, and submitt exoplanet transit observations as part of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Follow-Up Observing Program (FOP). I discovered a passion for observing: staying up all night with my coworkers, dancing to Pitbull to stay awake through the spooky, lonely hours. On Team TESS I became an astronomer. I also earned my "telescope license" by successfully operating the two beautiful historic refractors and received a very cool glow-in-the-dark sweatshirt to prove it. Fun fact: the photo of the Dumbbell Nebula on my homepage was taken (and edited) by me during that summer, using the PlaneWave telescope at Wellesley College's Whitin Observatory!

Samantha observing on Wellesley's historic 6-inch refractor

For the rest of undergrad, I took on as much astronomy as I could get my hands on. I studied the long-term variations of carbon variable stars with Dr. Robert Cadmus, using the Grant O. Gale Observatory’s 24-inch Cassegrain reflecting telescope at Grinnell. I spent a summer as a member of Dr. David Trilling’s research group at Northern Arizona University, writing a Python pipeline to extract asteroid observations from archival data sets. I applied the pipeline to the UKIRT Hemisphere Survey, recovering 26,138 asteroid observations. The work resulted in my first paper, which you can read here.

I am the Vice President of Exploring Your Universe (EYU), the largest science fair in LA County. Read more here!

Fun Stuff

Outside of work, I enjoy learning new recipes, making music of all kinds, and attending women's pro sporting events, especially the Women's Pro Baseball League. Go Queens! I try to get outside as much as possible. I especially love the beach. I love traveling and learning about the world, especially when learning new languages. I played Ultimate Frisbee in college, and I was the President of the Latin American Ensemble.

I am happily married to my lovely wife, Tino. We have two furbabies, Milo and Cosmo.