Mentoring & Service

During my six years at UCI, I have dedicated myself to the mission of diversity and inclusion on campus. One area in which I have devoted the majority of my service is the recruitment of undergraduate students from underserved and underrepresented communities into graduate school.


Leadership

I have worked closely with UCI’s Diverse Educational Community and Doctoral Experience (DECADE) program to organize and lead workshops known as the Know-How Sessions to raise awareness amongst undergraduate students about graduate school opportunities. I also worked with DECADE’s Student Executive Committee to implement to develop and expand relationships with departments and Schools. This collaboration along with our community meetings helped to identify and address issues within each school and department at UCI, which were then documented and reported to the Dean of Graduate Studies as well as the Deans of each school at UCI.


Mentoring

In addition to my service with DECADE, I have spent the past four years serving as a Graduate Student Lead (GSL) for Graduate Division’s Summer Research Program. The program’s mission is to prepare first-generation students from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in graduate programs. Each summer I worked with a group of six to nine students to provide guidance and support as they conduct research with a professor and/or in a lab. As a graduate student mentor, my main objective was to help prepare them for the arduous process of applying to graduate school and fellowships. I was also candid with students about my own personal struggles and shared strategies for navigating academia as a first-generation, Latinx student. Over the past four years, nine of my students have accepted into doctoral programs at universities such as University of Michigan, Stanford, Georgia Tech and UCI, and three others have won fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation and American Political Science Association.

August 2019. Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium. With my Summer Research Program mentees.

Outreach

In January 2020, I worked with UCI’s Student Outreach and Retention (SOAR) Center to launch the Graduate Access Preparation Program (GAPP), a pilot program which aims to prepare twenty (20) first generation students with the graduate school application process. As the Graduate Student Fellow, I designed and facilitated the curriculum for a series of workshops to motivate first-generation undergraduate students from underrepresented and underserved communities to pursue a graduate degree. The objectives of the workshops are to teach participants about graduate school, selection of program, funding a graduate education, and strategies for applying. At the end of the course, the students receive a voucher for a free GRE preparation course. 

[Photo credit: Daniel Cano]


Recognition

In recognition of my teaching and mentoring service at UCI, I received Latino Excellence and Achievement Award (LEAD) in 2018 and received the 2020 Tom Angell Fellowship, which recognizes one graduate student for demonstrating a commitment to mentoring at UCI.

2018. Latino Excellence and Achievement Dinner (LEAD) Award Reception. With then-Dean of Graduate Studies, Dr. Frances Leslie.