Anna's Project Page

Who: I am from Pleasant Grove, Utah. I came to the University of Utah for ACCESS and amazing opportunities for undergraduates to participate in research. I enjoy reading, writing, and anything space-related.

My scientific/engineering interests: I have loved science since I knew what the word meant and am particularly fascinated about learning how the world works. As my interests took to smaller and smaller details, I found a passion for Chemistry and Physics. I dream of understanding how everything fits together in this large universe and like to nerd out about the planets with anyone who will listen.

Academic goals: I am a Physics and Chemistry double major, minoring in Mathematics. I will continue working in my ACCESS lab and would like to publish before graduating. After earning my undergraduate degrees, I plan to attend graduate school where I will pursue a Ph.D. in Physics.

Career goals:  Currently, I have two pathways I am interested in pursuing, one is to continue studying fundamental particles by working at CERN, the other is to study space and cosmic rays at NASA.

Please submit your bio through the ACCESS F/SP Canvas course (assignments).

The earth is constantly bombarded by small high energy particles called cosmic rays. The study of these cosmic rays, the field of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, has seen great progress over the past decade; we are able to predict the cut-off point of the cosmic ray spectrum, but we are still unable to determine the origin of cosmic rays. In order to be able to determine the origin of cosmic rays in the universe, the instruments used to observe each cosmic event, the collision of a cosmic ray with the atmosphere, must be accurate within a degree. We attempt to measure the theoretical sun and moon shadows, the absence of cosmic rays due to obstruction of the cosmic rays’ trajectory towards the earth by the sun and moon, to determine the accuracy of the instruments within a degree. To find the sun and moon shadows, we calculated the angles between every cosmic event, the sun, and the moon. Results suggest that there is the presence of sun and moon shadows but there is not enough data to statistically prove their existence. Because we are unable to prove the existence of the sun and moon shadows, we are unable to determine the accuracy of the instruments. These results suggest that more data is required before we are able to find sun or moon shadows in the data and determine instrumental accuracy.

Detailed instructions on how to write an abstract are available in the ACCESS F/SP Canvas course (navigate to Modules once you are in the course). For your reference, consider reviewing the ACCESS 2018 symposium program and select abstracts. Links to an external site.

Find tips, an outline for creating your video, and how to submit in the  ACCESS F/SP Canvas course assignment. We recommend using "Kaltura" and My Media (Canvas tools) to create your video. Please keep your video to around 3 minutes. Longer videos may be difficult to upload. 

View Anna's poster: Attempted Verification of Astronomical Pointing using Sun and Moon Shadows by the Telescope Array Download Attempted Verification of Astronomical Pointing using Sun and Moon Shadows by the Telescope Array