Charity Woodrum

Yeah, take us all the way back.

How the heck did you end up studying how galaxies die?

So I grew up in rural Oregon in a small town called Canyonville.

When you grow up in a rural area like that, you get to see the Milky Way.

And so being under the dark night sky certainly affected me, and it was certainly a place of peace for me growing up.

Was it contrast to, like, in the house, in the school, anything like that?

Yeah, I would definitely say that there was chaos at home.

Both of my parents at one time were addicted to some type of drug.

My dad, I think one of the words people would use to describe him...

would be violent.

And I think as a distraction, I would go out and look up at the night sky.

Just be in the backyard, just walking into the grass and laying down in the grass, sometimes with a sleeping bag.

You know, under the trees and just looking up at the night sky.

Yeah.

I was thinking a lot about how big the universe is.

and how even though I was in my small town, that the world was a lot bigger, the universe was a lot bigger, and there was just more out there to explore.

At a young age, I asked one of my middle school teachers what I could do to work for NASA someday, and he laughed at me.

Like a cruel... It was like a chuckle.

I don't think he was trying to be cruel, because at the time it didn't make sense to me.

I was the valedictorian of our high school, but, you know, looking back, my graduating class only had 17 people, and he also knew my family history.