In 2023, I graduated with a BS in Earth Science, with an emphasis in geology, from the University of California, Santa Barbara. During my undergrad I worked in Dr. Francis Macdonald’s lab on creating a whole rock geochemical record of Tonian (1000 - 850 Ma) sediments located in the Grand Canyon, AZ via a handheld XRF. With this record, we’ve been able to address questions about orbital forcing in deep time; ice ages prior to the Sturtian Snowball Earth; and depositional environments that contain some of the earliest eukaryotes. After graduating, I joined Dr. John Cottle’s lab at UCSB where I worked on various projects, ultimately strengthening my skills in zircon uranium-lead dating via laser ablation inductively coupled mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS).