About

Current

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Creative Machines Lab at Cornell University, and a writer for the nonprofit science education website sciencebuddies.org. You can read more about these two positions on their respective project pages: Fab@School and Science Buddies.

Bio

I received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA in 2007. I then joined the Microbotics Lab at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences where I worked on mechanical design, actuation and flight control of the Robobee. During my time as a graduate student at Harvard I developed a strong interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education at the K-12 level and frequently volunteered as a guest speaker at schools and science museums. K-12 education was primarily an extracurricular activity during my time at Harvard, and in May 2012 I received my Ph.D. in Engineering Sciences after completing my thesis focused on the Robobee (for all practical intents and purposes, my Ph.D. is in mechanical engineering – Harvard’s school is not broken up along traditional departmental lines and thus all degrees are awarded in “Engineering Sciences”). More details about my work at Harvard can be found on the publications page.

After graduating from Harvard I completed a three-month summer postdoc position at Tufts University in the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach. I taught a LEGO robotics class to a group of elementary and middle school students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and coordinated a multidisciplinary engineering/psychology study centered around the class. The goal of the study was to determine if team-based robotics building activities could catalyze and encourage social interaction in children with ASDs. Additional information and publications about this project are forthcoming.

In September 2012 I moved to Ithaca, NY and began my current positions at Cornell and Science Buddies.

If you are interested in my research or outreach work, please feel free to contact me.