Service and Outreach

Since 2017, I have been a member of the Addir Interfaith Dialogue Program at MIT. As an Addir Fellow, I have participated in weekly small group dialogues and semester-ly retreats with the Addir Fellow cohort, which is selected yearly to represent the broad diversity present in the MIT student body (religious and otherwise). Since 2018, I have been the Graduate Community Fellow (GCF) for the program, which has involved developing a website for the program, contributing to MIT-wide event planning, facilitating dialogue training sessions for program fellows, recruiting, interviewing, and selecting yearly cohorts for the fellowship, contributing to a pitch for continued finanacial support for the program, acting as the community service chair, and performing other logistical activities.

From 2015-2018, I was a Graduate Resident Tutor (GRT) in the East Campus dorm at MIT. As a GRT, I provided guidance and support for undergraduate students living in the dorm as they navigated the academic landscape, grew through social challenges, worked through conflict, and experienced a range of minor to significant mental health concerns. I also enjoyed co-creating a community with the students who lived on hall each year, such that it could be a place where all residents felt a sense of companionship and belonging. One of my favorite hall traditions is the annual Pumpkin Drop, where we drop 100-150 pumpkins off of the tallest building on campus.

In January 2017, I traveled to rural North Carolina to present to middle and high school women about careers in STEM fields as part of the MIT Women's Initiative. The goal of the program is to provide information about careers in STEM to women who might not otherwise be exposed to these fields and for the presenters, as women in STEM, to talk to students about their careers. I enjoyed connecting with the young women I met in North Carolina and sharing with them about the many exciting jobs they could do with robots and rockets.

In the 2020-2021 academic year, I mentored a group of high school students from the Boston area as they performed a research project related to racial justice in the Kids4Peace Circles of Action program. Our team, which I mentored alongside a student from Boston College, came from a diverse set of backgrounds and worked together over the course of the year to research bail in the criminal justice system.

During the 2020 calendar year, I was the council president at University Lutheran Church in Cambridge, MA. In this role, I organized and presided over monthly meetings of the council and led and represented the congregation through decision-making related to the COVID-19 pandemic, operations of the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, building renovations, and support of local initiatives related to affordable housing. Over the the last few years, I have also enjoyed preparing meals for shelter guests, getting involved in the Cambridge Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition, and attending events for the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization.