Daniela, or Dani for short, is a 3rd-year PhD candidate in the Physics and Astronomy program. She was born and raised in Brazil, and completed her undergraduate studies at Barnard College, where she majored in Physics and Computer Science. Currently, she works under the supervision of Dr. Wei Li in the analysis of Ultraperipheral Collisions with the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS)

When not doing research, Dani enjoys playing table tennis and is the president of Rice’s table tennis club (come play with us!). She speaks Portuguese and Spanish, a little Japanese, and is excited about learning new languages and cultures. Her favorite thing about Rice is the tight-knit community and the Coffeehouse (the matcha lattes are very good!). In her free time, she enjoys reading (and is currently diving into Carla Madeira), and has been picking up on crochet, though she admits she mostly saves projects on Pinterest. Dani is happy to work with first-year doctoral students to help them find community and make Rice feel like home.