Allison Schiffmaier
I'm currently studying cognitive science at University of California, Davis, while working as an undergraduate researcher in the geosciences, computation, and remote sensing field. I've been doing this work for approximately 3 years now. Over the summer, I had the exciting opportunity to publish for the first time as a first author at the annual statewide California Earthquake Center, focusing on machine learning predictions for magnitude estimates in paleoseismology. This upcoming April, I'm presenting another poster on climate action inspired by Sustainable Development Goals. I recently transferred from my local community college where I earned about 7 technical associate's degrees, and I'm now in my first 3 quarters at Davis. I do my research through the purview of faculty and the Office of Research, working on individual projects that link together over time. I'm also a local lead for the NASA space apps at Folsom and recently participated as a speaker at Folsom Tech Week.
• Cognitive Science
• University of California
• Davis (current)
• 7 technical associate's degrees from local community college
• Golden Key Honor Society
• Influential Women 2026
• Golden Key Honor Society
• NASA Space Apps at Folsom (local lead)
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say to search broadly for their understanding, because honestly, when I first came into college, I knew that I was passionate about several things, but being passionate about something and having direct skills in that area or the ability to easily comprehend something is completely different. I was passionate about aerospace, but I found out that I had this really neat knack for computation and coding, so once I realized that, I was able to switch over to computation and use that as a throughput into my passions of geoscience and aerospace. So sometimes it's not always a direct path, but to always keep chasing after what you're passionate about with the skills that you're able to acquire and have a knack for.
Locations
UC Davis Office of Research
Folsom, CA