I wanted to be a paleontologist since the age 5, ever since I pointed to that word in the dictionary and asked my mom what it meant. From then on, I was obsessed with learning about dinosaurs. Living near Washington DC, I was able to attend lectures by leading paleontologists at the Smithsonian and in neighboring cities. I spent my summers from the age of 9 to the age of 15 volunteering at a local archeological dig, the closest thing to a paleontology camp that my parents could find and afford. Although I started working at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center during the summer after my junior year in high school, it was only because my mom made me. I was going to be a paleontologist; that is until I decided I couldn’t raise a family and be a paleontologist who worked “in the field.” It was clear that I was the academic in the family and I was going to college. I needed something to major in and quick. I didn’t read fast enough to major in a humanities field. I thought about being a math-physics double major, but quickly decided that math wasn’t applied enough for me. So I settled on a physics major. It wasn’t until I was teaching middle and high school physics at the Maret School after I graduated from Kenyon College that I decided I loved physics and wanted to pursue a career in it.