Experience

POWAN Initiative

• E-Learning Providers
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Empower Hour Program Coordinator

  • Dec 2022 - Present

  In the summer of 2022, I proposed the POWAN Empower Hour Program, designed to assist students in high-fail rate courses, with the support of my team. That proposal, backed by a letter of support from the principal of Ramona High School (RHS), earned $15,000 from the Strauss Scholarship Foundation. This grant helped me to onboard, train, and cover stipends for two UCR graduate physics students to be POWAN’s instructors at RHS for the 2022-2023 academic year. After handling the months-long California Department of Justice’s background check verification process and the POWAN-RHS memorandum of agreement finalization process, we successfully conducted five in-person and online support sessions for 155 physics students to prepare them for their final exams. Show less

• Tutoring Team Lead

  • Jun 2022 - Dec 2022

  As a co-lead of the POWAN Tutoring Team, I onboarded tutors who agreed to return to the restructured tutoring team and led a biweekly check-in meeting to ensure that tutors were performing up to POWAN's standards. I also met with my other co-lead and the Executive Director to create agendas for these meetings and discuss ways to improve the efficiency of our tutoring services.

• Operation Lead

  • Jul 2021 - Dec 2022

  I led POWAN's Operations team to improve the quality of POWAN's programs and facilitate effective communication between POWAN's board, students, and volunteers. I also worked with the Executive Director to define the scope of projects. I reported risks, issues, and team progress on a weekly basis. I delivered all communication deliverables on time, within budget, and to the required quality standard.Successes include creating POWAN's new Safety Policy, completing POWAN's updated orientations for students and volunteers, and informing all of POWAN's tutors about the organization's implementation of a mandatory tutor evaluation form and Calendly scheduling for all tutoring sessions. Show less

• Volunteer Tutor

  • Aug 2020 - Jun 2022

  As a volunteer tutor for the POWAN Initiative, I accumulated more than one hundred hours of tutoring over the past year through hourly 1-on-1 sessions where I guided my tutees through subject areas such as mathematics and reading to help them become confident learners. Based on my excellent tutoring and my tutees’ stunning academic improvements, POWAN’s executive board chose me out of its seventy tutors as the Tutor of the Month for December 2020. My accomplishments as a tutor earned me the role of POWAN's sole ambassador before the executive board promoted me to one of its two Operational Lead positions. Show less

• Ambassador

  • Dec 2020 - Jul 2021

  As POWAN’s ambassador, I was responsible for effectively communicating my passion for the organization to prospective tutors, tutees, and community partners. I conducted nine interviews with K-12 administrators and teachers, out of POWAN's twenty total interviews, that helped POWAN to secure three thousand dollars in grant money from UCR’s I-CORPS program and set the foundation for future partnerships.Additionally, I drafted and sent seventy outreach emails to community-oriented student organizations and undergraduate pre-teaching programs to recruit more tutors. The most major success was through my meeting with Leslie Bushong, the Administrative Director of UCR’s CalTeach program. After hearing me out, she uploaded our tutor outreach flyer to their website as a community tutoring opportunity, leading to more tutors and credibility for POWAN. My efforts led to my eventual promotion to an Operational Lead position. Show less



L.A. Care Health Plan

• United States
• Hospitals and Health Care
• 700 & Above Employee

• Health Equity Intern

  • Jun 2023 - Aug 2023

  As a Health Equity Intern for L.A. Care Health Plan, I worked full-time on two projects. My first project was designing a user-friendly reference sheet for L.A. Care providers to collect social determinants of health (SDOH) data and accommodate the social needs of over 2.9 million L.A. Care members. By the end of my internship, the sheet contained information, QR codes, and links about SDOH screening tools, documentation codes for members’ social barriers, and curated community resources for members with social needs, mainly food security, housing, and transportation. In addition to creating a general version of the sheet, I tailored the sheet to every city in L.A. Care’s network of twelve Community Resource Centers (CRC). For example, I met with Margaret Coins, the manager of the Lynwood CRC, got a list of local resources from her, and created a sheet specifically for providers in Lynwood. My second project was finding six community-based organizations (CBOs) that provide gun violence prevention education for clinicians to reduce gun violence in L.A. County. To take advantage of how these CBOs offer tailored training on topics such as gun safety and suicide prevention, L.A. Care’s Health Equity Department will follow up on my research by partnering with them. Besides the projects, I engaged in various community and professional development activities. At L.A. Care’s Back to School event in El Monte, I distributed free backpacks and school supplies to kids and families. Also, as a speaker at the 2023 L.A. Care Health Equity Summer Internship Ceremony, I conducted a five-minute internship summary presentation for L.A. Care’s leadership team, such as the CEO and Chief Human Resources Officer. By completing this ten-week internship, I developed a more robust understanding of the public health aspect of healthcare, made a multi-level impact on my community, and advanced my goal of becoming a community-oriented physician. Show less



Brain Exercise Initiative

• United States
• Research
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Team Leader

  • Mar 2021 - Aug 2023

  As a team leader for the Brain Exercise Initiative at UCR, I spearheaded volunteer teams to successfully facilitate online meetings where my volunteers guide seniors through exercise packets intended to improve the seniors' cognitive function. Before each meeting, I delegated specific tasks to each volunteer and sent them a prepared agenda for the upcoming meeting. During each meeting, I managed any volunteer concerns and coordinated with our on-site supervisor to ensure the meeting ran smoothly. After each meeting, I assessed where the organization could improve and reported my findings to the executive board. Show less

• Volunteer

  • Mar 2021 - Mar 2021

  As a volunteer for the Brain Exercise Initiative at UCR, I guided seniors at the Gardens of Riverside, a memory care facility, through exercise packets containing math and trivia questions intended to improve their cognitive function. After just two weeks of volunteering, my efforts earned me a promotion to my current role as one of the Brain Exercise Initiative's first Team Leaders.



University of California, Riverside

• United States
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Undergraduate Research Assistant (Brelsford Lab)

  • Sep 2022 - Jun 2023

  Estimated the proportion of shared ancestry among 71 Formica argentea ants by analyzing genetic variation data. My research focused on learning more about how supergenes control important species variation and traits. I used UCR’s High-Performance Computing Center to filter genomic data, analyze chromosomes of interest, and find evidence of supergenes in an ant chromosome unexpected to have supergenes. My project’s future lies in confirming the supergene’s existence, determining which traits it controls, and proving that the ants I analyzed were from 3 new Formica species. By independently conducting research, I learned how to investigate observations to derive actionable insights.Dr. Brelsford, my lab's principal investigator, formally identified me as a contributor to his NSF-supported project (Award Number: 1754834) in June 2023. Show less

• Little EINSTEINs External Communications Chair

  • Jan 2022 - Jun 2023

  As the External Communications Chair for the Little EINSTEINs program within the general CNAS Science Ambassador program, I developed lesson plans and conducted outreach to local elementary schools to establish virtual sessions. In these sessions, I introduce the scientific topic for the first ten minutes and then assign the general Science Ambassadors to Zoom breakout rooms. I rotate through these rooms to make sure that the Science Ambassadors are properly guiding K-6 students through simple but fun scientific experiments intended to foster their passion for STEM at an early age, such as building a neuron model or making ice cream from stratch. Show less

• CNAS Science Ambassador

  • Sep 2021 - Jun 2023

  As a CNAS Science Ambassador, I represented UCR's College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences to external and internal constituents to increase the number of student applications to UCR as CNAS majors and encourage donors to provide funding for CNAS.

• Academic Resource Center Tutor

  • Sep 2021 - Mar 2023

  Through seven one-hour shifts every week, I conducted effective tutoring sessions for UCR undergraduates in a variety of STEM courses including but not limited to: introductory calculus, introductory physics for life science majors, general chemistry, general biology, organic chemistry, and biochemistry.I developed and presented workshops on specific topics during my two hours of professional development every week. For example, I and another ARC Tutor worked with an organic chemistry professor to develop an accurate and visually appealing workshop on chair structures. As the first workshop of the year among our tutor cohort, we successfully presented to twelve organic chemistry students who needed the review in anticipation of their upcoming final.Facilitated 7 weekly 50-minute 1-on-1 and group sessions to empower undergraduates to succeed in STEM coursesDeveloped and hosted 3 50-minute organic chemistry workshops for 70+ students to help them excel in their finalsIn June 2023, I was selected as 1 of 3 tutors out of 36 tutors to receive the Outstanding Student Employee Award. Show less

• Undergraduate Student Researcher (Dehesh Lab)

  • Feb 2020 - Sep 2022

  As an undergraduate research assistant at the laboratory of Dr. Katayoon Dehesh, I started out by participating in the journal clubs hosted by Dr. Jin-Zheng Wang, my current post-doctoral mentor. Through the journal clubs he hosted, I learned how to discuss and present research development topics clearly and effectively. By October 2021, I was able to come to the lab in person and started applying what I learned through the journal clubs. I learned as much as I could about fundamental laboratory techniques while assisting Dr. Wang in his experiments that aim to characterize the impact of specific mutations on certain intracellular communication pathways using A. thaliana as a model plant organism. On the plant preparation end, I was trained to obtain seeds from specific mutated A. thaliana lines, plant seeds after preparing labeled soil trays, and transfer seedlings from plates to soil trays. For the molecular biology end, I isolated plant genetic material, performed successful PCRs of that material, and prepared and ran gel electrophoresis of amplified PCR products. Show less



Riverside University Health System

• United States
• Hospitals and Health Care
• 700 & Above Employee

• Health Coach

  • Jul 2022 - Jun 2023

  I empowered underserved patients with chronic conditions in a weekly 8-hour shift through motivational interviewing. By doing this, I developed my ability to build strong patient relationships founded on trust and openness. Additionally, I identified patient barriers to healthier lifestyles to help patients set and meet realistic and measurable health goals. In doing so, I learned how to make compassionate compromises with patients from different backgrounds than mine. By conducting a minimum of 3 outreach calls per shift to patients whose conditions met the criteria for health coaching, I developed my ability to successfully convey my passion for the program even through phone calls by focusing on maintaining a positive tone and good cadence. Show less

• Emergency Department Volunteer

  • Oct 2021 - Aug 2022

  I facilitated positive patient experiences and supported the healthcare team at the Emergency Department of RUHS Medical Center. I greeted those who arrived in the triage section, supplied everyone in the waiting room with warm blankets and water as necessary, and guided patients to specific parts of the ED while reassuring them of the ED's high quality of care. I also performed logistical tasks for the healthcare team members such as restocking glove and mask supplies, preparing COVID test kits, and keeping track of patient concerns and requests that nurses need to address after completing their tasks at hand. Show less

• HELP Coordinator

  • Oct 2021 - May 2022

  As a HELP Coordinator, I assisted resident physicians associated with the UCR School of Medicine and Riverside University Health System with online monthly health education workshops for students at Inland Empire high schools by answering questions in the chat and revising the presentation materials prior to the workshop. In the Zoom breakout rooms, I looked over students' health advocacy projects and provided feedback in terms of their website's layout, health content, and overall impression from the perspective of a community member seeking resources for issues such as homelessness and high blood pressure. Show less



UC Riverside School of Medicine

• United States
• Hospitals and Health Care
• 100 - 200 Employee

• Future Physician Leaders Student Leadership Committee Secretary

  • Sep 2022 - May 2023

  As the Future Physician Leaders Student Leadership Committee Secretary, I worked with the former program coordinator, Esmeralda Trejo, to prepare for the upcoming FPL program, maintained the FPL Instagram, and took meeting notes while relaying information to the rest of the SLC. I also helped coordinate the tabling for events such as the UCR SOM Open House.

• Community Health Project Facilitator

  • Jun 2022 - Aug 2022

  I facilitated the implementation of 2 9-week community health projects (CHP) about constipation and CPR awareness. Throughout those 9 weeks, I mediated group tensions and conflicts to ensure that weekly project deadlines were consistently and properly met. I coached the constipation group throughout the creation of a CHP that Dr. Kendrick Davis, the associate dean of assessment and evaluation, chose to have the group present at the 2023 UCR School of Medicine Dean’s Research Symposium.

• Future Physician Leader Student Committee Member

  • Sep 2021 - May 2022

  As a member of the Future Physician Leaders Student Committee, I conducted six outreach presentations to local organizations and high schools in conjunction with the program's coordinator and on my own. I also provided feedback and made annotations on the program's application materials for the current application cycle to ensure that the professionalism of the program stands out among all of the UCR School of Medicine's student pipeline programs.

• Group Leader

  • Jun 2021 - Aug 2021

  As a Group Leader, my main responsibility was to guide my group of seven FPL members in developing materials such as a website, brochure, and slides for a community health project focused on ADHD. I personally outreached through emails and calls to various presentation venues and successfully formed partnerships with the Corona-Norco Family YMCA and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Redlands-Riverside, where we formally trained and educated workers who work with children who have ADHD. Thanks to the effort we put in over the nine weeks of the program, Dr. Davis, the associate dean for assessment and evaluation at the UC Riverside School of Medicine, selected my group as one of seven groups out of a total of twenty-one FPL groups to present our work and findings at the UCR School of Medicine Quality Improvement Conference in March 2022. My efforts earned me a spot as one of six Student Speakers at the FPL Program Symposium, where I highlighted my personal journey leading to and during the program. Show less