Making Astronomy Welcoming for All
I am committed to making astronomy and academia as welcoming as possible for everyone. I served on the Steward Observatory Values Committee as a graduate student representative from 2023-2025. During my time on the committee, I was involved with efforts to advise the graduate admissions committee on best-practices, increase retention in our undergraduate program, and improve feedback and reporting channels to department and university administration for graduate students.
Prior to joining the Values Committee, I was heavily involved with the Steward Observatory Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (SODEI) Initiative's Admissions Task Force, which seeks to identify and eliminate sources of bias within our graduate admissions process. We worked closely with the admissions committee to remove the GRE as an application requirement, overhaul the application questions, and create resources for our applicants that help them craft strong applications regardless of their access to mentoring at their undergrad institutions. We also survey our incoming graduate classes to assess the impact of our work each year. For more info, take a look at the SODEI website.