This year, I wanted more than a reading challenge: I wanted a project that would help me become a better data storyteller. Books In Conversation With began as a practical solution to a book lover’s problem: over the last two years, I had accumulated way more books than I had…

Reflections on DEI indulgences in Higher Education. — In 2019 I announced that I would be leaving my PhD program. Earlier this year, I officially graduated with my Master’s in Physics and a graduate minor in Ethnic Studies. This afterword is a slightly modified version of the final chapter of my thesis, titled “Journey to the Center of…

(And things I would consider if I could do it over) — I was admitted to Oregon State University’s Physics PhD program this past fall. By Fall 2020, I intend to graduate with my Master’s degree. Coming to the decision to switch tracks from a PhD to a Master’s wasn’t difficult (in fact, I felt the desire to pack my bags at…

Radical Dreaming as Resistance — The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. -Milan Kundera Creating Visionary Spaces All organizing is science fiction. When organizers imagine a world without poverty, without war, without borders or prisons — that’s science fiction. They’re moving beyond the boundaries of what is possible or realistic, into the…

Conquering the Sacred Black: An American Empire in Space — “We’re in the space exploration business, and the outer solar system is a wild, wooly place. We haven’t explored it very well.” -Alan Stern Origins of the US Rocket Program With the end of World War II came the start of the Cold War, and through this new battle for political, technical, and military superiority, the…

(Y)our Land, Our Science: Two Case Studies in Astronomy — “We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate.” -Lydia Maria Child The advanced technologies used in ground-based astronomy necessitates the construction of large, complex facilities remote places, far from light pollution and urban traffic and, in the…

Decentering the History of Astronomy — A Common Story If you’re a self-identified science nerd, and/or you grew up with PBS in the 1980s, chances are you’re familiar with Carl Sagan’s documentary series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Its episodes took viewers on a historic tour of astronomy, and gave them a place to contemplate the wonders and big questions…

An Introduction “The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.” -Carl Sagan For millennia, the night sky has evoked in us poetry, folklore, dreams. Today, those dreams have manifested as a future of a permanent human presence in space…

(A reflection piece for Observational Astronomy/Astrophotography) As a young child living in Guam, my family and I would go for regular night walks. Those walks, on that tiny Micronesian island in the Pacific, were what first connected me to the night sky. As a slightly older child, this time living…