Outreach

I am committed to facilitating women's and underrepresented minority's involvement, success, and continuation in STEM at various levels of education through the following outreach programs and mentoring opportunities:

Graduate Student School Outreach Program (GRASSHOPR) 2020-2022 – This program pairs Cornell University graduate students and postdocs with K-12 teachers in nearby counties to teach several mini-course sessions on STEM-related topics. Alongside fellow Ophir lab members, I am an instructor of the mini-course “So you think you know brains?” and I teach three 1.5-hour interactive lessons to third grade students at Belle Sherman Elementary School during the Spring semesters. For lesson one, students learn about the function of the major brain lobes while constructing and labeling brain hemisphere hats. Lesson two consists of teaching third graders about the parts of the brain involved in sensory perception and engaging them to participate in various sensory and perception activities. Students learn how different animal species integrate a variety of sensory inputs and how they adapt to their environment during the third lesson. Our students are always very excited to learn about neuroscience and to participate in the fun hands-on activities.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 





 Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) Conference 2019 & 2022 – This is a full-day educational event for girls in 7th-9th grade. They participate in a series of short workshops throughout the Cornell University campus to stimulate interest in math and science through hands-on activities. As one of the workshop instructors, I helped organize the Neuroscience workshop called “Brains!” for the Department of Psychology which has been successfully led by female graduate students and postdocs for the past 10 years. To foster awareness of career opportunities in the STEM field, girls first learned about pivotal female role models and their contributions to the progress of science. After this important introduction, I taught basic neuroanatomy via guided sheep brain dissections. Then participants rotated to different interactive stations that included learning about songbird vocalization, cognition and perception, comparative neuroanatomy, and human neurobiology. It was an exciting opportunity to teach about neuroscience to young girls that are eager to learn about the brain and a career in neuroscience!
 
 
 
 





 
 
 

Diversity Mentoring Program 2019 – I was a member of the Department of Psychology Graduate Student Diversity and Inclusion Committee and I helped organize programs and events that foster recruitment and retention of members from backgrounds historically underrepresented in academia. We created this important mentoring program to provide structured advice and guidance to Cornell University undergraduate students who are interested in pursuing a career in Psychology. I mentored two undergraduate students, Megan Spurney (junior) and Laura Lopez (senior), who aim to follow careers in translational neuroscience and clinical psychology, respectively. I met individually with each student to talk about their research interests, past and current experiences as research assistants, how to maintain a work-life balance, tackling imposter syndrome, how to find funding for graduate education, and discuss potential summer internships and professional career paths. Additionally, I shared with them my experiences in academia to help them navigate seamlessly through undergraduate training, make the most their research experience, apply to graduate schools, and create a solid plan for their future in the STEM field. 
 
Promoting Undergraduate Research – I mentor my research assistants by teaching them laboratory research techniques, how to troubleshoot experiments, how to apply for professional development programs, developing research plans for their senior projects, and science communication through oral and poster presentations. Most importantly, I am invested in each of my students so that they experience a positive training environment and to strengthen their interests, perceptions, and confidence in STEM.

Undergraduate Research Assistants mentored at Cornell University:

Taylor-Jade Hall (2023-present)

Radia Basher (2023-present)

Amber Cao (2023-present)

Yaoyi Xing (2023-present)

Juan Delgado Mayo (2023-2021, Honors Thesis)

Faith Parris (2022-2023)

Amit Hanadari-Levy (2021-2023, Honors Thesis)

Joanna Moon (2020-2023)

Bianca Beckwith (2020-2022)

Pooja Patel (2020-2021, Honors Thesis)

Ashley Park (2019-2022)

Abigail Galvez (2019-2021)