Letters to a Pre-Scientist is a non-profit penpal program designed to connect grade school students from underrepresented backgrounds in science to real scientists across the nation. Every year, they work to match hundreds of students and scientists with varying science interests. I lead an effort to build a matching pipeline, using student and scientist survey data and pair them based on interests and enthusiasm. This led to a factor of ~1,000,000 speedup over LPS' manual matching. Read more about it on Edutopia and the Letters to a Prescientist blog.

Common wisdom in the luthier community is that quartersawn material (i.e., wooden boards with grain perpendicular to the faces) is typically stiffer than plainsawn (i.e., boards with grain parallel to the faces). Is this true for wooden braces in acoustic guitars? We gathered wood samples of various types and cuts and tested this theory. Published in the Fall 2016 Issue of American Luthierie.

I'm a "host star" for the Chicago chapter of Astronomy on Tap. The idea behind these events is that handful of astronomers from Northwestern University or University of Chicago will take over a bar for a night and give a public astronomy talk, along with trivia prizes, and science demos. Check us out on social media or read about our events in the Chicago Tribune.