Classifying Blue Stars

Samantha Scibelli

I’ve lived in the small town of Burnt Hills, New York for all of my life. Starting at a young age I developed a love for science. In my spare time I would polish rocks in my rock tumbler. I spent hours digging around my gravel driveway trying to pick out the quartz among the limestone. I also enjoyed analyzing fingerprints with my toy forensic kit. At one point I actually wanted to become a forensic anthropologist (the show Bones was a favorite of mine). My father had a part in helping to propel my scientific interests. He had an old chemistry set and we would do experiments on the weekends. He also would set up his old telescope so we could gaze at the stars. Perhaps that’s where my love of astronomy began. My interest in nature also influenced my passion for science. As a little girl I would catch frogs, butterflies, crickets - really anything I could get my hands on. I loved, and still love, fishing at my grandparent’s lake, only a couple hours from where I live. Bloody Pond, despite the gruesome name, is where I have had some of my best memories. I’ve especially enjoyed my time spent looking up at the sky on those clear nights … As I got older I watched documentaries and read books on concepts like light speed and parallel universes, which immediately captured my imagination. I was in awe by how the world works and how we can learn about it through equations and experiments. What drew me to astronomy and physics is the idea that it is the basis of study for the entire universe; from the most elementary of particles, such as neutrinos, up to the largest and most distant galaxy structures studied. My passion for science was escalated the summer going into my sophomore year of high school. That summer I attended a career exploration program at Cornell University where I took a workshop on astronomy. Immediately I fell in love with the field and the exciting research it was producing. I was fascinated by dark matter, exoplanets, and all of the mysteries in the farthest depths of our universe.