2023 Incoming Grad Series: Kathlynn Simotas

THE STORY

I have lived my entire life at the intersection of my two passions: music and science. I was born and raised in San Francisco, California where I originally planned to pursue a career as a singer and composer. When I was a kid, music was my proxy for science, allowing me to discover parts of myself and the world around me through my art. Music was my first love but eventually it wasn't enough to help me understand the world around me the way I craved. Once I uncovered my interest in science it felt like I was always being pulled in opposite directions, made to choose between making music and studying math and science. However when I went to Stanford for my undergraduate studies, I was able to complete simultaneous degrees in physics and music. This was the first time I was able to imagine a career where I wouldn't have to choose a side. I followed this with graduate studies in music and recently completed an MA in music, science, and technology at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. During my master's I began to understand the possibilities of interdisciplinary work in my career as a scientist, but I knew I needed to gain more experience to achieve these goals. In my next academic stage at UCSB I will be pursuing a PhD in physics specializing in astrophysics. I have a diverse range of research interests but ultimately plan to bring my passions together to do meaningful, inclusive, interdisciplinary research and demonstrate both the art in science and the science in art.

As a first generation college student who also didn't have access to advanced science courses in high school, I didn't know anyone who had pursued science as a career nonetheless considered it a possible choice for me. It was hearing stories, both real and fictional that allowed me to imagine myself as a scientist and gave me the strength to overcome the immense challenge of my undergrad studies. My experiences made made it extremely important to me to advocate for diverse stories of scientists to be told and honored to inspire upcoming generations of scientists from all backgrounds.

WHY UCSB

I chose UCSB because in addition to being a top graduate physics program, the department and school at large offer a wide range of diverse research opportunities and flexibility to fuel my curiosity and help me achieve my goals. The astrophysics program offers research from smaller scale exoplanet detection and stellar dynamics to cosmology and large scale structure of this universe. It also doesn't hurt that UCSB's environment and proximity to the Pacific remind me so much of home. My family has been in California for many generations so it was important to me to remain close to my home and family while undertaking such an important educational opportunity.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

As an interdisciplinary scientist, my research interests are pretty far reaching on the surface but fundamental employ many of the same techniques across fields. In undergrad I largely focused on large scale structure formation and the relationship between observable aspects of galaxy clusters and their dark matter halos. My master's degree and work since then have been in the domain of audio digital signal processing and music/audio information retrieval. For my PhD I hope to combine some of these methods and topics to create signal processing tools for astrophysics use cases and implement large and complex simulations based on the fundamental physics of the universe. Many of the same statistical and computational techniques exist across the fields of audio and astronomy; after all the vast majority of data is a waveform whether that's light, sound, or gravitational waves!

FUN FACTS

My deep love of science fiction and fantasy, in particular Star Trek and Star Wars was what first inspired me to learn about space science and really try to understand how and why the universe works the way it does. This past year I have had the amazing opportunity to actually work as a researcher in the sound division of Lucasfilm, Skywalker Sound. On top of being a dream come true, I feel like I have come full circle now that I have been able to contribute to some of the stories that allowed me to reach the point where I am today. While I was at Stanford I also pioneered a popular interdisciplinary class about Star Wars which I would love to bring back during my time at UCSB! Please come chat if you want to talk about anything Star Wars or Star Trek, California beaches, reading/writing fiction, indie, 80s, or classical music, cool space pictures, board games, making music, or how cats are the best creatures in the universe.