Ericka pursued intensive research in numerical cosmology at Kenyon College in Ohio, USA, where she graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelors of Arts degree in physics, with Highest Honors in physics. During her undergraduate career, she used GABE, a nonlinear scalar field evolver, to make observational predictions for a variety of cosmological models in the nonlinear regime, including the inflaton and the proposed Early Dark Energy field. Her honors project focused specifically on modelling the fully-nonlinear interactions between a scalar field wave packet and a black hole.
Ericka is pursuing a PhD in the field of cosmology at DAMPT with Dr Edward Shellard’s group. She hopes to build on her current experience by producing numerical models of how nonlinear processes in the early Universe may affect the CMB bispectrum.
