Degree: Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry
Research Professor: Professor Ilse Cleeves

Biography

Chris Pede is from Lynchburg, Virginia and was homeschooled, meaning he graduated high school as both valedictorian and bottom of his class. He's graduating from UVA with a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry. 

Chris became interested in astronomy after taking a class on Black Holes his second year. Chris worked with Dr. Ilse Cleeves on tracing chemical asymmetries in rotational emission around a young stellar object to infer the presence of a planet. Detecting deviations from the expected rotational emission helps us understand the chemical and physical effects a planet would have in a protoplanetary disk.

Outside of lab, Chris is a teaching assistant for physical and organic chemistry, a personal trainer at the AFC, and a volunteer with the Sexual Assault Resource Agency, an organization dedicated to ending sexual violence. He is a dedicated tattoo aficionado whose enthusiasm for art is not shared by his mother. Chris spends what little free time he has left cooking, lifting weights, and playing basketball. Next year, Chris will be attending an inferior basketball school and getting his Masters Degree in Biomedical Sciences at Duke, while applying to medical school for the following year.