During the COVID lockdown in 2020, an eighteen-year-old Sarah Kate Sweeney (“Sarah Kate” is a double-barrel, having a confusing name is kinda my thing) found herself about to start a Bachelor’s degree in Astrophysics. Not in an exciting new environment as she’d hoped, but in her childhood bedroom, in rural Co. Cork, Ireland. In lockdown, she had no way to connect with her new classmates, no way to meet new people. This was a bit of a let down.

So, she did what any self-respecting Zoomer would do, and made a TikTok account. She named it “Sarah the Physicicist”, as a nod to an inside-joke with her father, and started documenting her journey through physics, explaining what she learned as she went along. It was intended purely as a way to stay in touch with her friends, but as time went on, more and more people started to tune in.

A lot of big changes happened offline, too. She moved out of that little bedroom and into the big city. She got a chance to meet all the cool people at university. The stuff she learned about got cooler (both literally and figuratively). All the while, Sarah the Physicicist grew in popularity online, and started to gain traction as an educational account.

Today, Sarah has just graduated from her degree, has just started her career as a research physicist, studying experimental condensed matter. All the while, she still loves explaining physics to randos on the internet.

She also has a grá for music, but that’s for another website.