About Olivia

Hey there! I'm Olivia. You might also know me by my middle name, Harper.

I'm an astrochemist working as a NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) Fellow at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in the Astrochemistry Laboratory (Code 691). I earned my Ph.D. at Caltech in Pasadena, California, in December 2021. During my thesis, I mostly used radio telescopes (which look more like satellite dishes than your standard optical 'scope!) to tune into the invisible universe and figure out what's out there and how it's made. At NASA Goddard, I’m still doing radio astronomy, but my primary research focus is now on interstellar and cometary ice analogue experiments. I'm also an artist and a teacher and passionate about science communication and effective teaching pedagogy.

I saw my first radio telescope when I was seven when passing through the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia. I was awestruck by the size of what I thought was a massive satellite dish, and I hastily sketched the dish in a sketchbook, forever imprinting it in my mind. Later, I found out that what I had seen was Green Bank Observatory (at the time part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, or NRAO). Little did I know that the dish—the 17-million-pound, taller-than-the-Statue-of-Liberty Green Bank Telescope—would set me on a path of astrochemistry research.

Before I was a PhD student, I studied chemistry and mathematics at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, close to where I grew up. I was initially interested in chemical ecology, but a visit to the NRAO just before college also got me thinking about radio astronomy. In 2013, I had the opportunity to be a summer student in Green Bank, where I heard the term "astrochemistry" for the first time. Wanting to learn more, I sought out astrochemistry research experiences for the following summer and landed in the Öberg Astrochemistry Group at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I earned a B.S. in chemistry and mathematics from Dickinson in 2015 and headed off to Köln (otherwise known as "Cologne") in Germany on a Fulbright research fellowship. There I worked with the Cologne Laboratory Astrophysics Group at the Universität zu Köln and forever fell in love with Germany.

While in Germany, my high-school-sweetheart-turned-husband Alex and I became a family with the arrival of Günther, named for some long-dead German king. We gave our baby a name with an umlaut as a consolation prize for citizenship in Germany being by blood, not soil.

For now, I'm happily making pretend space ice northeast of D.C., tuning into the invisible universe, and in an endless struggle to get my code working. When I'm not doing that, you can find me with the family at a coffee shop, exploring a National Park, or making pot pies on what we call Pub Sunday.

Want more details? Check out my CV!

I am sharing my journey as an NPP Fellow through my blog Building 34.