Rachel Huchmala

Rachel (she/her) earned her PhD for her work in the McCoy group in June of 2023. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in chemistry with minors in physics and astronomy at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ in 2018 after moving from her hometown of Las Vegas, NV. During her time at NAU, she participated in the NAU/NASA space grant conducting theoretical studies under the supervision of Dr. Jennifer Hanley and Dr. Gerrick Lindberg. She also worked at the Lowell Observatory operating telescopes and teaching guests about the night sky. When she isn’t doing science, Rachel enjoys cheering on the Vegas Golden Knights and San Francisco Giants.

Research Interests: Developing reduced dimensional/local mode/adiabatic models to understand the effects of hydrogen bonding on vibrational spectroscopy, using these effects to study how hydrogen bonding environment can be determined spectroscopically, and gathering insights into the underlying physics that causes these spectroscopic signals.