Mia de los Reyes, a senior studying physics and math, recently became the first NC State student to win the prestigious Churchill Scholarship and the opportunity to pursue a year of graduate research at the University of Cambridge based at Churchill College.
The Churchill Scholarship allows American students to travel to the United Kingdom for one year to earn a master’s degree in science, mathematics, physics or engineering at Cambridge University. This year, it was awarded to only 15 students nationwide.
To become one of these select few, de los Reyes worked on her application with Tiffany Kershner, coordinator for distinguished scholarships and fellowships.
“She stood out immediately,” Kershner said. “She has that passion and that drive that is necessary to be competitive in these kinds of competitions.”
The process began with a research plan. Alongside Robert Kennicutt, head of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge and co-author of the Kennicutt-Schmidt Law, de los Reyes will study populations of galaxies and trends in star formations. Specifically, they will work redo the original analysis of the Kennicutt-Schmidt Law, which discusses the relationship between the amount of cold gas in a galaxy and how quickly it forms stars. With more data available since the original analysis in 1998, they hope to obtain more accurate results and explanations for inconsistencies in their previous findings.
De los Reyes said she is excited to study in England; however, this will not be her first experience traveling for academic purposes. Internships, research opportunities and volunteer work have taken her to CERN in Switzerland, Hawaii, El Salvador and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where she earned a first-author title on a publication in the Astronomical Journal when she was only a sophomore in college. She has also visited the Philippines where her family is from.
“I like to think traveling has made me a more passionate and empathetic person,” de los Reyes said. “It’s definitely made me aware of cultural differences.”
De los Reyes believes this experience will be unlike any of her previous travels. Despite being nervous about adapting to the English lifestyle and not having the proximity of her family to lean on, she is excited to broaden her scientific horizons.
“I’ve done research before, and I’ve published before, but I didn’t really feel like that was all my work since I had a lot of help from advisers and professors,” de los Reyes said. “I’m really hoping to become more independent as a scientist and as a thinker and be able to start asking the kinds of questions that astronomers need to ask.”
De los Reyes’ love for science, as well as her road to success, began at home at a young age. Her father, Francis de los Reyes, an engineering professor at NC State, always encouraged her to find the answers to her questions by critical thinking.
“My parents raised me to believe that education is super important. They sort of trained me in science,” de los Reyes said. “My father made me think about things deeply, and my mother basically taught me how to do research.”
In middle school, de los Reyes participated in Science Olympiad, an academic tournament for students in grades K-12. She was randomly placed in the astronomy event and has loved the topic ever since. She went to high school at North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, or NCSSM, where she became interested in physics, which led her to study physics at NC State after winning the Park Scholarship.
“MIT was my dream school, but then I came the NC State, and I realized there are a lot of awesome people here,” de los Reyes said. “Honestly, if I had to do it again I would pick NC State every single time.”
During her time at NC State, de los Reyes founded the Serious About Science and Math Club after she noticed some of her younger brother’s friends were not able to attend NCSSM. As this was the place that allowed her passion for science to grow, de los Reyes wanted to bring that opportunity to other high schools. The club teaches workshops on nontraditional science topics at local high schools so that students can learn about subjects that are not normally taught at the high-school level. So far, the club has taught workshops on particle physics, astrophysics, computer science and artificial intelligence.
“You take physics in high school, and it’s a just a bunch of balls on ramps, and it’s super boring and everyone hates it,” de los Reyes said. “But physics is more than that. It’s a way of thinking, and once you realize that, then a lot of fields are open to you.”
With all of her accomplishments, de los Reyes intends to further her education and her passion for physics and astronomy when she travels to England in the fall.
“Cambridge is an amazing place, a wonderful experience, and we are very proud of her,” Kershner said. “She worked very hard, and it was a well-deserved award.”
“I’m really hoping to become more independent as a scientist and as a thinker and be able to start asking the kinds of questions that astronomers need to ask.”
