Teaching, Mentoring, Volunteering
Cosmos 2007:
On the summer of 2007 I taught a two-week course on Galaxy Morphology for the COSMOS program at
UCSC. My students (Angela, Carla, and Stacy) developed their own galaxy classifaction system
based on shape, concentration, and color using Hubble Deep Field images. They also learned about
the basics of galaxy formation, mergers, spectra, and evolution.
Final Student Presentation: pdf
AGEP: I am
part of the Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP), dedicated
to promote diversity at the Graduate level and beyond. In November 2006 I attended a Teaching
and Mentoring Conference held in Miami, which stressed the fact that 50% of students of color
never finish graduate school. AGEP works to improve these statistics.
AAS Minorities:
I am a member of the American Astronomical Society Committee on the Status of Minorities in Astronomy.
Friends Outside:
From June 2005 to June 2006, I volunteered with Friends Outside, a non-profit organization dedicated
to help inmates and their families through and after the encarceration process. I worked at
the Santa Cruz Main Jail.
Mentee Ryan Denlinger: Currently a Caltech undergraduate student, Ryan worked with me on black hole recoil as part of a project for the Siemens Competition where he was a Region Semifinalist.