I was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. I spent the last ten years on the Hawaiian Islands, where I earned both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the biological sciences. My passion for the origin and evolution of life on our planet led me to the field of astrobiology. I received two internships with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as part of my master’s project in astrobiology. My work at JPL involved isolating organic biomarkers from rocks for Mars research and developing new methodologies for detecting and isolating organic molecules in meteorites. I am currently working on my Ph.D., where I am investigating the organic matter present in Archean aged rocks to further investigate the environmental and biological evolution of Earth. I aim to merge my background in biology with the geosciences to understand how clues to the origin of life can be preserved in the rock record, not only here on Earth, but other bodies in our solar system such as Mars.