Beyond Scholarship
Meet Rachael Huxford, physicist by day and small-business owner by ‘whenever-she-gets-time-out-of-grad-school’. Rachael is a graduate student in the Department of Physics at the Eberly College of Science and works on gravitational wave data analysis. She’s interested in discovering what gravitational waves can tell us about neutron stars and improving gravitational wave detection pipelines. What started as a much needed volunteer effort to make masks for the local State College community, has now evolved into a great avenue for Rachael to showcase her sewing talents while busting out some stress. She initially started selling just scrunchies, which she marketed as Happy Valley Scrunchies on Instagram and in stores at our very own Uncle Eli’s downtown. Over the course of the pandemic, Rachael has rebranded and moved into the world of plushie-production. The business is now called Thread Theories and you can find her on Instagram, TikTok and her own website. She makes the cutest and fluffiest bats, whale sharks, stingrays, dragons and many other adorable creatures! Recently, she’s started taking her plushies to local events, and you can meet her in person at Sci-Fi Valley Con in Altoona this October.
