Rachel loves boy bands. A lot. A whole, whole, whole, whole lot. She says loving boy bands is pretty embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as her grunge phase (to which I can relate). She loves them so much that she knits them scarves. When she’s not knitting scarves and mailing them to boy bands (One Direction is her favorite, although we did rock out some New Kids on the Block in the car), she attends a boarding school in Greensboro, North Carolina and comes home to Pittsburgh, PA as much as she can (something to which I can also relate). She roots for the Pens and works for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History working as a counselor for the camp programs for little kids. She can play guitar and speaks fluent Russian (her family’s from St.  Petersburg) and has three dogs.

I think Rachel is pretty darn awesome. Not only did she sing boy band songs for me, she also told me a lot of chemistry jokes. And anyone who tells me good chemistry jokes is automatically written down in my Book of Favorite People. Happy 16th birthday, Rachel… you rocked this out.