Leadership
Graduate Student Assembly Commiee
Working with GSAC on a number of fronts has allowed me to exercise leadership amongst my peers and community. Working as the recruitment chair with a team of 20 students allowed me to manage a large cohort of individuals and their time. Beyond the managerial complexity, I found leadership in establishing new events such as a meet and greet aimed to promote diversity and inclusion in our program. We also diversified the options students had for spending their time touring Berkeley and ensured accessibility to interact with facility.
The combined front of improved management and delegation and the new events resulted in a dramatic (50%) increase in student matriculation.
Guiding Outstanding Learners to Discover
One of the best experiences I've had in graduate school has been the plethora of opportunities to provide mentorship to striving students. With the three courses that I've taught, I've had the opportunity to help a number of students grow into powerful chemical engineers and thoughtful scientists.
My longest mentorships centered around two undergraduate students who I guided in their research work. One, whom has recently graduated, will be featured on a soon to be submitted publication. They also have been hired by a leading biotech start-up in the bay area.
My most recent mentorship experience focused on the remote mentorship of an international high school student with interests in natural products and scar formation. Due to COVID, my student had to design and implement their experiment entirely with their own resources, rather then coming into my lab space. I guided the student to think creatively and ultimately the mentee won "Most Unique Experiment" award despite the strict resource limitations.