Denyz Melchor

"I signed up for tennis just for a class to get some exercise, and then my physics lab instructor was like 'Drop that, join the ultimate frisbee class.' So I joined it and became friends with all the ultimate frisbee people. You have to be like six feet tall and jump really high and run really fast. I was none of those, but I was there for two years because I loved the group of people. It was all because of physics. My physics lab instructor also told me to join one of the Gravitational-Wave Physics and Astronomy Center group meetings. I was like, 'Okay, I'll go but I'm a math major, how could I ever get in?' Then I received an email asking me if I wanted to join, and so I switched my major! I had heard the words 'black hole,' but I didn't even know what that meant. And now I'm here, at the LVC meeting! I wouldn't have ever thought I'd be able to do all this type of science. I want to eventually become a dean of a college or something. First step is to be a PhD student, and then postdoc, then professor. I'm hispanic, female, first-generation American, first-generation to go to college. A lot of people at my school are basically where I'm starting, so I want to go do something for the people like me."

Denyz Melchor is an undergraduate researcher and McNair scholar at California State University Fullerton studying gravitational-wave sources with numerical relativity simulations of binary black holes and black-hole-neutron-star binaries. In her free time, Denyz likes to play ultimate frisbee and rock climb. You can follow Denyz on Instagram at @melchordenyz.