Tiara Anderson

My story

I am currently a physical science major pursuing the career goal of doing research in the field of astrophysics. I have experience in doing research in the field of nuclear astrophysics and I love it, because even within nuclear astrophysics, there are different elements to look at. My future plan is a Ph.D. in astronomy/astrophysics.

I recently participated in an REU at Texas A&M University in College Station. My project was to build a C++ code from scratch that calculates the Breit-Wigner cross section for any two interacting particles over an energy range chosen by the user. The goal of the project was to provide my advisor with a program that would allow him to compare theoretical cross sections to actual cross sections with and without the assumptions commonly made in nuclear astrophysics research.

This scholarship award is important to me because for the past four years, I’ve had to maintain a job on and off to pay for expenses while being a full-time student. Being awarded this scholarship is allowing me to not work my last year as an undergraduate student and finish the year strong. This scholarship has relieved so much financial stress for me for this last academic year.