Outreach & Leadership

The mentors I have gained throughout the years have been crucial to my growth as a researcher and have inspired me to hold equal importance in my scientific and mentorship contributions. Because of this, throughout my graduate career, I have mentored students across career stages, from high school to graduate students. I am also very passionate about making astronomy more accessible to the Spanish-speaking community, so you'll find some examples of my outreach work below.

If you would like to work together on an outreach project, please reach out!

REACH, LAMAT, and REU Programs

CIERA has amazing summer research programs both at the high school (REACH) and undergraduate (REU) levels. In my first summer as a graduate student, I co-mentored Isabella, a bright high school student from Chicago. I designed a three-week research project with her, which culminated in a scientific presentation. The following year, I became the mentor coordinator for REACH, where I guided graduate students in designing effective projects and mentoring relationships. This was incredibly rewarding, as not only did I get to closely follow the progress of all of the REACH students, but I also learned a lot about different mentoring styles. I wanted to make an impact on students with similar backgrounds to me, so I later became a mentor for the LAMAT program at UC Santa Cruz, where I co-mentored a talented undergraduate student.

Graduate Womxn in Physics

In my years at Northwestern, I have also been very involved in the Graduate Womxn in Physics (GWiP) community. I first chaired the Advocacy Committee, which liaises between the graduate students and the department to ensure that the needs of gender minorities are being met. Based on what I learned about the needs of the community, I created and chaired the GWiP Mentorship Committee, which connects gender minority graduate students with mentors in the GWiP network.

Spanish Astronomy Brochures

I translated Dearborn Observatory's brochure series into Spanish, so visitors from Chicago's Hispanic community can explore the night sky and careers in astronomy without a language barrier. You can find them here!

CIERA Connections Committee

I co-organized a speaker series that exposes junior researchers to diverse career opportunities outside academia.