Outreach

Before college, I had no idea what engineering meant. Throughout my career, I have worked with various organizations to reach out to K-12 students and help them understand how their math and science lessons can lead to careers doing interesting and important work for society. Below are some of the programs that I've been involved with.

Here is a reflection on my experiences as a graduate student with YPSD

Jersey City Sustainable Design STEAM Challenge

Fall 2022-Spring 2023

Through a partnership with the New York Academy of Sciences and the Jersey City Public School District, I developed a problem statement and educational resources for a new challenge on the sustainable re-design of a classroom object. Teams of high school students work over the span of three months to identify a physical object in their classroom, analyze how it works, evaluate the product life cycle, and go through the engineering design process to reimagine the product in a form that has improved environmental and social impacts.

Exploring Careers Options in Engineering & Science (ECOES)

Summers 2016-2022

As part of the ECOES summer program at Stevens, I had the opportunity to lead a 3-hour session on Sustainable Design for 15 different groups of high school students. We discussed some of the grand challenges and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, and then took deeper dives with design activities related to climate change, electricity, transportation, food, and water.

International High School Saturday tutoring program

Spring 2019

On Saturday mornings, I serve as a volunteer tutor at the International High School in New York City. This program allows students, many of whom have been in the United States for less than a year, to come in and get extra help with their math, science, and English schoolwork. Each week, I work with 1-2 students to provide individual help in understanding course content and completing their assignments.

Adventure in Science (AIS)

February 2015

As a volunteer for a Saturday morning program at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to explore different scientific concepts with 8-14-year-old students, I led a session with 12 students on engineering design. We discussed the design process and went through activities with hands-on, iterative activities to design paper planes and mechanical devices.

Michigan Introduction to Technology & Engineering (MITE)

Summer 2011

As a graduate student at the University of Michigan, I had the opportunity to serve as an Engineering Concepts Instructor for the MITE summer program. I planned and facilitated a 3-week program with rising 10th- and 11th-grade students, focusing on concepts in mechanical engineering, solar energy, and fuel cells, including a final project to build and race a model fuel cell car.

Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program (DAPCEP)

Summer 2011

As part of the DAPCEP program, I had the opportunity to lead a five-week Saturday morning program with middle school students, teaching them programming logic and game development using the MIT Scratch program and remote-controlled cars.

Ypsilanti Public School District (YPSD)

Jan 2008 - May 2011

Throughout the majority of my time as a graduate student at the University of Michigan, I was involved in a partnership with YPSD, where I was placed in math and science classrooms to help present the relevance of the curriculum to real-world concepts. For the first two and a half years, I worked with high school math classes to prepare and deliver weekly or bi-weekly discussions relating engineering and life experiences to the course topics in algebra and geometry. In the final year, I worked in a middle school earth science classroom to prepare and facilitate multi-day laboratory activities.

Clark School of Engineering Student Ambassador

Aug 2004 - May 2007

While this was actually designed for recruitment to the University of Maryland College of Engineering, it provided me with the opportunity to help high school students understand what engineering is all about. As an undergraduate student, I visited high school classrooms and hosted visiting prospective students to deliver presentations and facilitate discussions and activities that showed students what it means to be an engineer.