Lauryn is a first-year PhD student in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan. She received her bachelor’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT in 2024. At Michigan, Lauryn’s research focuses on irradiation effects in materials for fusion reactors. At MIT, Lauryn researched the effects of irradiation on YBCO, a high-temperature superconductor, and developed a new method for hydrogen mapping using Palladium. She interned at SpaceX (Hawthorne, CA) and Marvel Fusion (Munich, Germany) in the summers of 2022 and 2023. After her PhD, Lauryn hopes to work in the fusion industry and help determine the best materials for the next generation of fusion reactors.