During my undergraduate studies, I worked to organize the mineral collection at the State University of New York at New Paltz and was a summer intern at the Harvard Mineralogical & Geological Museum. Following the completion of my undergraduate studies, I worked as a Collections Assistant at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City under the guidance of Curator George Harlow from February 2019 to July 2020. During my time at AMNH, I worked on the renovation of the Allison and Roberto Mignone Hall of Gems and Minerals.
At AMNH, I was responsible for cleaning, repairing, and organizing specimens now on display in the hall. I aided in specimen selection and case design, along with the design and content teams. I worked alongside the exhibition team to ensure the safety of specimens during specimen mounting and case installation. At AMNH, I also assisted with the analysis of specimens using Single-Crystal XRD and identified the gem cut of gems on display, which can be accessed using the virtual label rail in the Hall of Gems.
In addition to working with the collection, two of my favorite responsibilities at AMNH were cleaning the touchable specimens that were on display in the Harry Frank Guggenheim Hall of Minerals and restoring them by removing decades of visitor-deposited debris, as well as acid etching and polishing the Sterling Hill Slab displayed in the Hall of Minerals and Light.
Inspired by the specimens I worked with at AMNH from across the globe, I decided to focus my Ph.D. research on the role of volatiles as drivers of geologic processes and mineralization. Following my departure from AMNH in 2020 to start my Ph.D., I was hired by the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University and spent the summer of 2021 researching and organizing the Cornell University Mineral Collection. This collection was first started by Ezra Cornell in 1868 and includes the collection of Benjamin Silliman Jr., some of which are displayed in the Heasley Mineralogy Museum. I am now utilizing the Cornell University Economic Geology collection in my postdoctoral research on critical element deposits within the United States.