My mentoring philosophy ->

My teaching philosophy ->

As an undergraduate, I attended an event hosted by Dr. Robin Wilson. Dr. Wilson invited a Black mathematician on campus that had recently written an Op-Ed out about leaving their tenured position at Purdue because of racial discrimination. During this event, Dr. Wilson facilitated an informal community discussion with Black and Latino students in the College of Science, and many individuals discussed the harmful experiences they faced.

After this event, I reached out to Dr. Wilson, eager to keep the conversation going. And Voices of Color was born.

Voices of Color is a student of color led organization at Cal Poly. This organization serves to facilitate safe, community spaces for dialogue for students of color in STEM. During my time organizing with student leadership, we coordinated monthly community chats, and advocated the needs of students to our Dean’s office.

After leaving Cal Poly, I brought this community infrastructure to my postbac institution, Michigan State University. This community initiative is currently active and works closely with the MSU Graduate Retention Initiative team. Check it out here!

When I applied to graduate school, Cientifico Latino was my go-to resource to learn how to put a strong application. This organization creates guides for every step of the application process. They also have really insightful blog posts, which inspired me to pursue a post-baccalaureate research program. I would highly recommend this resource if you are considering applying to graduate school!

I was lucky to be able to participate as a mentee in their GSMI program in 2020-2021. I was paired with a recently admitted graduate student who provided personalized mentorship to help me make it to the finish line of the application process. My mentor helped me successfully write my application, helped me network, and provided encouragement along the way.

Now that I am on the other side, I have taken on a role as a mentor for the CL GSMI initiative! In my first year of graduate school, I provided mentorship to a prospective graduate student, and plan to continue throughout my graduate program.

Science cafés are fun, lively meetings held in places like coffee houses, pubs, and community centers where everyday people come together and learn about a variety of topics from professional scientists. You don’t have to know a thing about science to participate, you just have to be curious!

Athens Science Café hosts free, monthly events for the local UGA community.

This year (2022-2023), I am excited to be serving as the VP of Events for the Athens Science Café. If you're local to the Athens area, come check us out!

Anyone can be a scientist. All it takes is curiosity and dedication.

I am using resources like iNaturalist.org in my research exactly for that reason. These tools rely on users (over 2.5 million on iNat!), that use their smartphones to photograph the natural world around them. Some of our research requires hundreds of individuals to help us learn from over 200,000 images collected by our community.

Want to learn more or get involved?

Check out my current projects here!