After finishing high school in Montgomery, New Jersey, I obtained an undergraduate Physics degree from Rutgers University. My senior honors thesis with Prof. Amit Lath was a search for new particles in the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. I am now a fourth year graduate student at Berkeley, working with Prof. Barbara Jacak on relativistic nuclear collisions in the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN as well as on preparations for the Electron-Ion Collider planned for Brookhaven National Laboratory. I first started to learn to play piano with Mrs. Jolanta Szewczyk in Yorktown, Virginia when I was 4 1/2 years old. She was a wonderful teacher who I studied with for 5 years. I went to the Virginia Music Teachers Association state piano competition twice, winning 2nd place in November 2007 and 1st place in November 2008. After moving to New Jersey, I studied briefly with Mrs. Malvina Potop.

I spent the next eight years of my piano carrier studying with Mrs. Clarfield. Lessons with Mrs. C. were always fun, and thanks to her guidance, I was able to earn Honors and High Honors in the spring NJMTA audition multiple times, as well as Honorable Mention in the fall NJMTA competition. I played multiple times at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and Merkin Hall. I also played at Baruch College Engelman Hall three times as a guest soloist with the Omega Ensemble, and at the State Department in Washington DC. Outside of competitions, I liked to play for NJMTA's Performathon, which helped raise money for the Ronald McDonald House. I was also a piano accompanist for the Bartle School Chorus for two years and in pit orchestra for three musicals.

Playing the piano and studying with Mrs. C have helped me grow in many ways: as a pianist, as a student, and as a person. As I have worked through college and graduate school, I have continued to find time to enjoy occasional piano practices.

--Beatrice