Q: What made you want to be a NASA intern?
A: I’ve pretty much always been interested in space. I joined the science research program at my school in my sophomore year, which helps kids get experience.
Q: How did it feel when you realized what you’d discovered?
A: It was exciting. This is only the 13th planet of its kind. I obviously hoped to find something, but the fact that I was able to find a planet and that I was able to find one so quickly was astonishing.
Q: You’ve been getting a lot of attention for this discovery. What’s that been like?
A: Overwhelming and surreal. I went to the grocery store the other day and the cashier recognized me.
Q: What was it like contributing to a scientific paper on the discovery?
A: I have about three or four sentences in a 20-page manuscript. Even so, those sentences that I wrote are going to be peer-reviewed and will be out in public. It’s cool to see how the process works, but at the same time, it’s intimidating.