Ayanna is a first-year PhD student. She recently graduated from Howard University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics with a concentration in Astrophysics, along with double minors in Philosophy and Mathematics.
She's explored diverse areas of physics—including plasma physics, radio communications, and nuclear physics—but in 2023, found her passion in stellar evolution and the complex life cycles of stars. Her current work bridges astrophysical research with indigenous African cosmologies, offering a broader lens through which to study universal evolution and challenging dominant Western frameworks in the field.
As part of her research, she's modeled over 100 stars using MESA (Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics), strengthening her coding skills in Python, C++, Fortran, and more.