Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Science Achievement Graduate Scholarship in Astronomy

Sofia Sheikh is a 4th year PhD Candidate in the Penn State Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, doing a dual-PhD in Astrobiology. She received her undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astrophysics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2017. Her research is primarily focused on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), but her other interests include other branches of astrobiology, pulsars, and exoplanets. She leads the Women and Underrepresented Genders in Astronomy (W+iA) group at Penn State, and is the graduate student research mentor for the Pulsar Search Collaboratory undergraduate club on campus.