Standing in the middle of Nichols Atrium on a Friday afternoon, Ishani Cheshire’s (12) eyes light up as she begins to explain neutrinos, black holes and red giants, vividly gesturing with her hands as she spills out fact after fact about the cosmos in an erudite manner, occasionally punctured with “I thought that was really awesome” or “That was super cool to me”.

Unlike many other astronomers, stargazing was not the deciding factor in her decision to pursue her interest in astronomy.

“Looking at the stars is nice, but it doesn’t give me any more emotion than I would get looking at the sky during the day,” Ishani said. “I’m more interested in the scientific aspect, that’s what gives me the emotion rather than just looking up at the stars.”

Instead, she first set her heart on astronomy due to an elective she took at school.

“My teacher, Dr. Nelson, said, ‘If you study astronomy, you’re going to be doing your own research, and eventually you’re going to a point when you will know something that nobody else has ever known in the history of humanity,’” Ishani said. “I was like, ‘That’s freaking awesome. I want to do that with my life.’ So that’s what decided it for me. It doesn’t need to be a big thing, just something.”

Ishani’s friend Annabelle Perng (12) can attest to Ishani’s love of astronomy and her deep desire to learn more.

“I know it’s something she keeps up with on her own time,” Annabelle said. “She’s often asking cool hypothetical questions like, ‘if two black holes are approaching each other, will there ever be a time when matter is being pulled away from one of them?’

Before astronomy came along, Ishani enjoyed writing literary analysis essays on a variety of topics that most do not consider analyzing in depth.

“I write essays about literature, like the type that we do in English class; I really like doing those,” Ishani said. “I especially like writing professional essays about stuff that isn’t professional literature, so I did one about a Katy Perry song.”

Another one of Ishani’s friends, Logan Bhamidipaty (12), recognizes her aptitude for this specific type of writing.

“She obviously has a genuine passion writing,” Logan said. “She has confessed to me on multiple occasions to writing pages and pages over the limit on her writing assignments simply because she is so engrossed in the material and so committed to proving her arguments.”

Nowadays, Ishani spends her time writing about her favorite subject.

“I like to write about a lot of different things, mostly astronomy,” Ishani said. “I wrote a poem, pretty recently, about the concept of gravity and how mass spins the fabric of space-time, and I just thought that was the coolest thing I had ever heard.”

Unlike many writers, Ishani weaves STEM topics into her creative writing, a combination that many readers would not expect.

“I combine math and science with poetry all the time because you write about the stuff you feel strong emotions about, and the thing that I feel strongly about is space,” Ishani said. “The first short story I wrote was a sci-fi short story was about a colony on Mars. You get these really cool ideas that devolve from something you learned about in class, and you want to follow them to their end, and that’s what I do in a short story or a poem.”

As a fan of literature, Ishani also finds herself drawn to speech, especially the personal aspect of it.

“I love hearing other people and their speeches,” Ishani said. “You know in a lot of classes people talk about things and sometimes you can see the edges of what they’re really passionate about. But when you’re in speech and debate you can really just talk about what you’re passionate about. And seeing someone give a speech about what they’re really passionate about is just a really great experience.”

Listening to all of these speeches has inspired Ishani to join the speech and debate team and express her opinions as well. A strong advocate for seeing the glass as half-full, she believes it is important for people to stay positive.

“I feel like a lot of people think that the world is doomed,” Ishani said. “But I think the most important thing about optimism is to remember that things can get better, and people miss the fact that it’s not impossible—it’s not even unlikely. For the last 50 years extreme poverty has been decreasing on a global level, and literacy rates are at the highest that they’ve ever been in human history. You just need to remember that the world is getting better, not just on its own but because of the work that people are doing.”

One notable example where optimism applies, she points out, is the recent school shooting on February 14th, where 17 students were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida.

“I think especially around when the Parkland shooting happened, this came up,” Ishani said. “Obviously when people are still feeling the loss right afterwards, you don’t want to be like ‘You should be happy.’ But then people start saying ‘There’s no point in the protests because nothing’s going to change.’ But it does have a point. The protests regarding the Parkland shooting made a big difference, because many state legislatures put through gun control bills where they weren’t previously being as successful.”

With this in mind, Ishani strives to stay optimistic about her future, where she hopes to further her astronomy studies. For now, she sticks to writing poems and short stories about space and how it has changed her life.

“I think part of the reason I write about it so much is that you write about the things that fundamentally change the way you think,” Ishani said. “And when they do that, you want to explore it further—what does that mean, and how do you then view the world around you differently?”

Correction: January 8, 2019

A previous version of this article spelled the name of a source incorrectly. This article has been corrected to reflect this error.