As a home-schooled, first-generation college student, Renee Spiewak excelled at 51ÁÔÆæ by working side by side with professors on undergraduate research. National Science Foundation funding took her to Italy and Australia where she built connections with international scientists.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I love is that astrophysics is a very global community because it has to be,\u201d Spiewak said. \u201cThe night sky is breathtaking. I have never lost that sense of wonder at how beautiful the sky is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back on campus, Spiewak is a regular at the weekly Center for Gravitation, Cosmology and Astrophysics Tea, sharing physics small talk and laughing with faculty and post-doctoral students. Her post-graduation plan is to continue researching pulsars.<\/p>\n
Spiewak was one of three graduates honored during 51ÁÔÆæ\u2019s December 2015 commencement ceremony at which more than 2,300 students received diplomas. Combined with those who graduated in May, the total number of degrees awarded to the class of 2015 exceeds 4,800.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A home-schooled, first-generation college student, Renee Spiewak excelled at 51ÁÔÆæ, working side by side with professors on undergraduate research and winning National Science Foundation funding to study with scientists in Italy and Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":402,"featured_media":26446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[174],"tags":[250],"section":[140,139],"display_categories":[114,116],"related-coverage":[],"uwmnews-feed":[158,161],"class_list":["post-26541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-student-success","section-science","section-science-technology","display_categories-top-story-primary","display_categories-top-story-section","uwmnews-feed-letters-science","uwmnews-feed-hard-science"],"yoast_head":"\n