Outreach and Mentoring

I have been involved with a wide variety of of diversity and outreach initiatives over the years. For a more comprehensive list, please see my CV , but I list some of my favorites below. Please reach out if you think we should work together!

Mentoring

In my opinion, mentoring is one of the most effective mechanisms to help keep promising young scientists in the field. Thus, I try to provide support and encouragment to my mentees at all stages of their careers.

I have mentored many undergraduates at both the University of Arizona and at other institutions. I frequently provide advice on how to prepare for graduate school or careers in industry, and how and why to get involved in undergraduate research.

I co-mentored UA undergraduate Trevor Smith with my advisor on his undergraduate thesis research. It was been incredibly rewarding to see his development into a promising researcher.

I have also formally and informally mentored junior graduate students at Steward.

Teen Astronomy Cafe

I have been volunteering with NOAO's Teen Astronomy Cafes , which are monthly workshops designed to give high school students the feeling for how real astronomy works. Each cafe contains a short lecture by an astronomer, a hands-on programming activity using real data, and finally, a lunch with time to chat with astronomers. I have helped facilitate several cafes over the past several years as an expert "helper".

Inspired by an activity I developed for the Warrior Scholars Program, I (along with Christine O'Donnell) created a Cafe called "Breaking the Solar System (and Other Ways Simulations Help Us Understand the Universe)" that was presented in June 2020. We taught students about different types of astronomical simulations and then guided them through an activity on how to run N-body simulations and what orbital stability tells us about the structure of the Solar System.

Tucson Women in Astronomy

I was an active member of Tucson Women in Astronomy (TWA; now GEMS as of Fall 2020) for my six years of graduate school. TWA is an organization that strives to provide networking opportunities and a community for all female graduate students and postdocs in astronomy in Tucson. I spent two years as the chair of TWA, during which I organized over 20 networking teas with female colloquium speakers who came through Steward. I also organized the TWA undergraduate mentoring program, where TWA members mentored undergraduates in astronomy to give them encouragement and support to finish their astronomy degrees and go on to graduate school. Finally, as chair, I secured an annual budget from the Friends of Steward Observatory to fund TWA activities in the future.

Project ASTRO

I participated in two cohorts of NOAO's Project ASTRO , which pairs professional astronomers with local teachers to help enhance the science curriculum and student engagement. I worked with high school teachers around Arizona. During my several classroom visits, I answered questions and did demonstrations on topics like historical astronomy, gravity, and planetary habitability.

Through Project ASTRO, I also connected with local star parties and science nights.

Teaching

As an educator, I try to make material as accessible as possible to the people I interact with. I hold the philosophy that everyone has the ability to to learn whatever they put their mind to, and it is my job as the "expert" to provide the resources to enable their achievement.

In Fall 2017, I was the teaching assistant for ASTR 300A, the upper-division majors class that taught dynamics and mechanics in astrophysics. I taught the computing workshops in the class (examples of the activities can be found here ). I also provided in-class assistance, proctored all tests, graded all homeworks and exams, created solution sets, and held well-attended office hours.

In Spring 2018, I was the teaching assistant for ASTR 208, which is a non-majors science class that covered topics relating to the interplay of energy, society, and the environment. I was responsible for all grading, and I helped with in-class activities and gave a few lectures over the course of the semester.

I was an ATOMM (Astronomy Tutoring of Majors and Minors) tutor from Fall 2017-Spring 2018 and in Spring 2020. As an ATOMM tutor, I spent about 3-5 hours a week helping undergraduates with any astronomy-adjacent questions they had. I had to think quickly on my feet and be flexible, as I had questions ranging from introductory astronomy, to vector calculus, to quantum mechanics.