Teaching, Mentorship & Outreach
Teaching
Guest Lecturer: Polymer Mechanics (MAE 4671, Cornell University), Spring 2023
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Guest Lecturer: State Variable Modeling (MAE 6140, Cornell University), Fall 2022
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Guest Lecturer: Mech. of Soft Matter (MCEN 4228/5228, CU Boulder), Fall 2021
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Teaching Assistant: Mech. of Soft Matter (MCEN 4228/5228, CU Boulder), Fall 2020
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Teaching Assistant: Mech. of Soft Matter (MCEN 4228/5228, CU Boulder), Spring 2019
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Teaching Assistant: Fundamentals of Material Sci. & Eng. (MSEN 5000, CU Boulder), Summer 2018
Mentorship
Rahul Ghosh (August 2022 – 2023): M.S. Student in Silberstein Mechanics for Materials Design Lab.
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Tianke Chen (August 2022 – 2023): M.S. Student in Silberstein Mechanics for Materials Design Lab.
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Vara Tummala (January 2022 – March 2022): YOU’RE@CU Undergraduate Research Program.
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Jinyue Dai (September 2020 – May 2021): CU Boulder Mechanical Engineering Senior Project.
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Xinfu Su (September 2020 – May 2021): CU Boulder Mechanical Engineering Senior Project.
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Madison M. Davis (September 2018 – May 2019): Vernerey Soft Matter Mechanics Lab.
An immeasurable amount of my good fortune is embedded in the time my educators and role models invested in me throughout my life. So as not to squander this privilege, I strive to share and distribute it by teaching, volunteering my time, and expanding the breadth and reach of educational opportunities for all members of my community. Especially those in greatest need.
Service & Outreach
Tutor for the Cornell Prison Education Program. August 28th, 2023 – Present. Tutor incarcerated students pursuing their Associate’s Degrees at Cayuga Correctional Facility in topics including writing, mathematics, and history.
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Volunteer at 4-H Career Explorations 2023 “Mechanical Metamaterials”. July 28th, 2023.
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Organizer and lead of “Solids, fluids, and everything between: ‘Viscoelasticity’ and the curious case of fire ants”. Dryden Elementary School. March 3rd, 2023.
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Volunteer for the Family Learning Science Together (FLST) program at Tompkins County Public Library, organized by the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR). Fall 2022 - Spring 2023.
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May 13th, 2023. Mechanics of bridge building workshop.
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March 11th, 2023. Bernoulli’s principle workshop.
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January 14th, 2023. Electrostatics workshop.
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December 10th, 2022. Circuits workshop.
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November 5th, 2022. Chemistry workshop.
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October 8th, 2022. Science of Sound workshop.
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Volunteer at Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC) afterschool program organized by CCMR. Fall 2022 - Spring 2023. ​
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March 29th, 2023. Mechanics of bridge building workshop.
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February 1st, 2023. Continuation of mousetrap cars and energy storage workshop.
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December 7th, 2022. Mousetrap cars and energy storage workshop.
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November 2nd, 2022. Catapults, kinematics, and levers workshop.
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October 19th, 2022. Science of sound workshop.
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Volunteer functional fitness instructor for The Phoenix. December 2022 – Present.
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Co-lead of Lego Car build activity at GAANN Engineering Field Day for middle school students. May 11th, 2022.
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Lead organizer of the non-profit, 2021 Collegiate CrossFit® Championship, January 28 - February 17, 2021.
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Event organizer and moderator for the 2nd Annual Non-equilibrium Networks & Active Matter Workshop, August 13-14th, 2019.
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Event organizer and teacher of Introduction to Material Science: 3D Printing for a group of Brownie Scouts, ages 4-9 years old. March 2018.
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Co-founder and administrator of the Prospects of Soft Matter Student Club, Fall 2018 – August 2022. A student club that brings faculty, post-doctorates, graduate, and undergraduate researchers together to facilitate discussion, learning, and collaboration. The club focuses on polymer chemistry, biomaterials, soft mechanics, and other disciplines centered on state-of-the-art soft matter research.
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Founder of the Functional Fitness Club at University of Colorado Boulder. Chief Executive Officer: Fall 2018 – Spring 2021. Advisor: Summer 2021 – 2022. A student club committed to promoting easy-access well-being in the Boulder community as achieved through physical activity and participation in functional fitness.
Solids, fluids, and everything between: ‘Viscoelasticity’ and the curious case of fire ants
March 3, 2023
To stoke interest in STEM and provide a nuanced perspective about the states of matter for young students, I developed and taught an interactive lesson on viscoelastic solids’ and condensed active matter to local 3rd-grade students at Dryden Elementry School. In the lesson, we explored the mechanical properties of solids and fluids, and investigated how some materials exist somewhere between these states depending on how long we observe or play with them. We then introduced the idea of 'activity' and showed the students some research on fire ant rafts. With the help of Cornell's Center for Materials Research (CCMR) and a Ph.D. student, Zhongtong Wang, from the MMD lab, we taught this lesson in March of 2023. The heartfelt thank you notes we received assured us that the lesson was worthwhile and impactful!
Monthly FLST Day
Fall 2022 - Spring 2023
The FLST program was an initiative led by the CCMR in which Cornell graduate students (and a certain post-doc) could guide students (ages 5-9) through active learning activities that conveyed concepts in chemistry and physics. The program was designed to promote open-access STEM education in the greater Ithaca community, and I had the privilege of helping teach several of its sessions during my first year as a post-doc at Cornell. These included lessons on bridge mechanics, static electricity, the Bernoulli principle, and more. Occasionally quizzing the regular attendees on the prior months' lessons didn't ruffle them at all. I was always delighted by how much they retained!
GIAC Afterschool STEM Program
Fall 2022 - Spring 2023
The GIAC is a local community center that offers accessible, after-school enrichment programs for children in the Ithaca area. The CCMR delivers monthly physics lessons at the GIAC on topics ranging from energy storage to acoustics for female students (ages 9-10). These lessons provide access to and promote interest in STEM for children in underrepresented demographics. I've been fortunate enough to instruct some of the sessions and will continue to do so for the remainder of my time in Ithaca. These highly inquisitive and creative young students have me looking forward to seeing what questions they'll ask and ideas they'll share next!
Introduction to Material Science: 3D Printing
March 2018
As an officer and co-founder of the Prospects of Soft Matter student club, in March 2018 I organized and led a lesson on additive manufacturing for a troop of Brownie Scouts (ages 4-9) to promote interest in STEM for young women. The lesson centered on the states of condensed matter, and blended art with science. Specifically, the lesson explained how the transition between states of matter allows engineers to achieve things like additive manufacturing. It then segued into active coloring exercises that mimicked 2D additive manufacturing before concluding with live demonstrations of filament 3D printing. Ultimately, every student was able to pick a toy animal to have printed for them, which really drew their attention so they understood the process. They liked their animals too!
2nd Annual Non-equilibrium Networks & Active Matter Workshop
August 13-14, 2019
In conjunction with the Vernerey Soft Matter Mechanics Lab, the Nonlinear Mechanics lab, the Biophysics Group, and the Prospects of Soft Matter student club at CU Boulder, I organized and chaired this two-day, open-access symposium that gathered experts from the greater Denver area so they could present their most recent research to the Boulder community. The event was an open-access workshop comprised of 14 invited faculty presentations and a two-hour student poster session with 12 graduate student presenters. Topics ranged from the biophysics governing mitosis, to constitutive modeling of dynamic gels. The turnout was great and this is now an ongoing and expanding series.
I believe that healthy bodies and communities facilitate healthy minds and societies. That’s why I’m deeply passionate about improving the health and well-being of my community by sharing the knowledge I've gained as a lifelong athlete, at every opportunity.
The Phoenix FitSober Classes
2022 - Present
The Phoenix is a non-profit organization that builds communities centered around healthy lifestyles and activities in support of individuals recovering from substance use. I've met many friends whose effectual recoveries are bolstered by their communities and a focus on their own physical capabilities. Having also lost a loved one to substance use issues, I've become committed to helping make such communities more accessible, because I know they work. Prior to my arrival, a now-close friend of mine started an ever-expanding branch of the Phoenix in Ithaca, NY called FitSober that offers free, weekly functional fitness classes for anyone with at least 48 hours of sobriety. Fortunately, she welcomed my help as a volunteer instructor with open arms and so I began helping in the Winter of 2022. Given its purpose and impact, I'll continue to volunteer for this organization indefinitely.
The Functional Fitness Club at University of Colorado (CU) Boulder
2018-2022
While concurrently a graduate student and competitive athlete in Boulder, CO I was talking to one of my younger teammates who was an undergraduate student at the time. She expressed discontent with the fact that, despite competing at a high level in our sport, she was unable to represent our school... our status as 'athletes' was not affiliated with our university. We were talking at an off-campus gym and our sport of functional fitness was not a mainstay on college campuses. This conversation prompted me to notice the general lack of student engagement at our gym despite it being a quarter mile from a state university in a college town. The memberships were cost-prohibitive. These realizations inspired me to found the Functional Fitness Club at CU Boulder whose purpose was to promote affordable access to functional fitness for college students and the Boulder community, at large. It further sought to provide students with opportunities to represent their schools in intercollegiate competitions. The club hosted free monthly workouts at generous local gyms such as CrossFit Sanitas and Koda CrossFit Iron View. With the onset of COVID in 2020, we also organized a remote, 2021 Intercollegiate CrossFit® Championship licensed by CrossFit® HQ so that students at CU and 12 other interested universities could safely compete and maintain their communities during quarantine. This club remains active at CU Boulder and has recently catalyzed - with help from its current and former Staff Advisors - the installment of a free-to-students, functional fitness gym in the school's recreation center.
