I grew up in Queens, New York and studied physics at Columbia University, where I was first introduced to the LIGO experiment by Professor Szabolcs Marka. Four years later, I’m still hooked. Along the way I have worked on a data analysis pipeline for the detection of gravitational wave events associated with the quasi-periodic oscillations from soft gamma repeaters, and also worked on the Physical Environment Monitoring and the Slow Controls subsystems. I hope to continue participating in the LIGO experiment as a graduate student, investigating the quantum aspects of the detector and working towards improving the performance of the instrument as it searches for gravitational waves.