mentoring philosophy

My mentoring philosophy centers on providing consistent, individually-tailored intra- and extra-curricular guidance and creating strong, community-based support structures, both of which are essential for individuals from marginalized backgrounds to survive and thrive in physics academia. My skills and outlook on being an effective mentor stem from extensive experience with one-on-one mentorship, advocacy for increased representation, and leadership in community-building projects.

Consistent, positive, individually-tailored mentorship: As a mentor, I will be a consistently warm and supportive presence in my students’ lives who will prioritize helping them identify and achieve their own unique goals. This requires strong communication skills, like adapting to each student’s unique communication style and actively listening to their needs, and fostering a judgment-free space where they can turn in times of stress. I will value each student as a whole person, not just as a researcher or academic. Furthermore, I believe predominantly positive feedback is much more effective than negative, and I strive to apply this approach as a mentor; students feel most excited when they are lifted up, encouraged, and told they are good at what they are doing.

• Research mentoring: As a graduate student, I have mentored three LIGO SURF students, all of whom I continued working with remotely after their respective summers’ at Caltech ended. All three have gone on to be very successful in their research and academic pursuits, including publishing work and getting into top tier graduate programs.

• Academic mentoring: As a TA in college and graduate school, I have organized one-on-one sessions for my students particularly struggling with coursework, helping those from often under-resourced backgrounds gain confidence and become genuinely engaged with the material through patient, positive, consistent support.

• Career mentoring: I have helped my mentees/students in their applications for internships, research opportunities, graduate programs, and fellowships.

Strong, community-based support structures: A key role for a mentor is to connect students with community resources that support their personal and academic growth–and to help create these resources if they do not yet exist. I will work to foster a welcoming, collaborative environment for my students, and connect them with affinity groups and other valuable external networks. People thrive when they are part of a community, and I am committed to helping my mentees avoid feelings of isolation.

• Fostering a supportive learning community: As a TA, I have held drop-in office hours with a collaborative atmosphere, where I encouraged students to learn not just from me, but from each other.

• Creating space for gender minorities in physics: I was a co-chair of the 2022 FUTURE program, a conference bringing a diverse pool of undergraduate women and gender minorities in physics and astronomy to Caltech’s campus to introduce them to life as a graduate student through panels, research presentations, workshops, and more. FUTURE participants reported that one of their favorite parts of the program was finally feeling like they were part of a community of like-minded scientists from multiple career stages. I also served as a volunteer in 2023 and 2024 conferences.

• Generating community-based support structures for graduate students through forming a Union: When existing structures fail to meet community needs, it’s often necessary to create new ones. I have been organizing with my graduate student union since it’s nascency, and serve as an elected member of the Bargaining Team for our ongoing first contract negotiations. I have fought for higher wages, healthcare, childcare, time off, protections for international workers, and safeguards against discrimination and harassment, helping unify our campus and ensuring everyone’s voices are represented.

Supporting mentees from marginalized groups: I strive to be a mentor who actively supports the most marginalized members of academia. In addition to what I described in the preceding sections, I will work towards confronting my harmful implicit biases. I aim to avoid pitfalls like feedback withholding —where essential feedback is unfairly softened or omitted towards minority students—and affinity bias, the tendency to favor those with similar backgrounds, so that all students receive the honest, constructive (yet kind) guidance they deserve

• First-hand experience of marginalization: As queer, transgender scientist from a non-R1 background and the first in my family to pursue a PhD, I bring personal experience navigating marginalized identities in male-dominated academic spaces. Having a mentor who has experienced similar prejudices and their future students can go a long way for students to feel seen, supported, and not alone.

• Increasing diversity in physics through undergraduate programs: Alongside my mentoring in the LIGO SURF program, I have actively contributed to its administration and admissions process by helping redesign criteria, reviewing applications, and conducting interviews to successfully increase diversity in the applicant pool and eventual program cohorts. All of the students I have mentored have been a minority either in race/ethnicity, gender, or both. Additionally, the main goal of the aforementioned FUTURE conference, in which I’ve been deeply involved, is to increase gender diversity in physics.