Zenith Fellow, Class of 2022
McMaster University, Bachelor of Integrated Sciences specializing in Physics
Host Organization: Institute for Earth and Space Exploration at Western University
Mentor: Julie Claveau

Paula is a recent graduate of the Integrated Sciences program at McMaster University, specializing in Physics. She loves finding the intersections of disciplines and integrating aspects of each to discover incredible new things. Particularly passionate about learning and asking questions, you'll often find her craning her neck and staring up at the night sky.

From a young age, Paula has been deeply fascinated by all things space. Her passion really solidified early in her undergraduate career when she discovered and joined McMaster NEUDOSE -- McMaster's cube satellite team. There, she aided in developing flight software for the satellite, designed the concept of operations for the satellite on-orbit, and eventually lead the Command and Data Handling sub-team. She took on further leadership within the NEUDOSE team by leading an interdisciplinary team to organize and conduct a stratospheric test flight of the satellite. Working on a project with a launch date, tinkering with objects that would later be in orbit, was some of the most exciting and inspiring things she could imagine doing.

As a scientist at heart, Paula complimented her engineering work on the satellite team with designing and conducting scientific studies in microgravity with the MERGE team at McMaster. Wanting to further the preliminary research of the team, as Co-President she is committed to expanding the team and providing opportunities for more students in the McMaster community to become involved.

After her experience as a CERN Summer Student, Paula hopes to one day combine her love of fundamental physics and space projects by utilizing the scientific opportunities in space to learn more about the nature of our universe.

Outside of STEM, Paula loves playing word games, crosswords, fostering cats, and biking. As a 2022 Zenith Fellow, Paula will be interning with the Institute for Earth and Space Exploration at Western University in London, Ontario.