What is your position or role in the DESI project?
I am a second year PhD student at IFAE (Barcelona), working in the Lyman-alpha forest group of DESI.
Where were you born?
I was born in Madrid, Spain.
Where do you live now?
I currently live in Barcelona, Spain.
What do you do as part of DESI?
So far, I have been working on improving the Lyman-alpha forest mocks used for the BAO (Baryon Acoustic Oscillation) analysis validation. My work has focused on making both the mocks and the validation pipeline more realistic, ensuring they better resemble the data.
What is the most interesting or exciting thing about your job?
I find it fascinating that by using phenomena that happened so long ago, such as BAO, we can infer so much information about the universe today. I also love that this is a job where you never stop learning!
Any advice for an aspiring scientist?
Stay curious and keep your sense of wonder. It is easy to get caught up in the routine and forget how amazing it is that we are actually discovering the universe! Also ask every “dumb” question you have, it is how you really end up understanding things (I am still working on this myself!).
What do you do for fun?
I love watching movies, listening to music and reading. I also play piano and sometimes jam with friends, enjoy writing, and of course, spending time with family and friends is always the best.
If you were not a scientist, what would be your dream job?
Probably a mathematician, since I studied mathematics at university and I loved it. But I have wanted to do many different things: be a journalist, a writer, a lawyer, a dancer, a neuroscientist, and many more!
What excites or interests you most about DESI?
I find it very exciting that, by working with DESI, we are able to use new data that no one had access to before, and with it, we might discover things about the universe that we were not even expecting. I also like that we get to do this as part of a collaboration, working alongside other people who share the same passion and goals.
