2019-20 Graduate Mentors

Biography: Kelsie is a graduate student in Biochemistry. As a member of Dr. Amy Palmer's lab in biochemistry, she uses fluorescence microscopy to study the role that metals play in cell biology. She has mentored both Biological Sciences Initiative (BSI) and Summer Multicultural Access to Research Training (SMART) students in the lab. As an undergraduate she worked for my college's Office of Undergraduate Studies summer program as an RA /...

Biography: Jason is a former elementary and middle school science teacher and earned his PhD in STEM Education. While at CU, he studied how high school science teachers designed activities for students to engage in creating explanatory models. He has since began a postdoctoral associate position at Northwestern University. Jason served as graduate student mentor to Christian Hill .

Biography: Kaitlyn is an archaeology PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2014, with a double major in Anthropology and Environmental Science and earned her masters in anthropology in 2017. Kaitlyn's research interests include interaction processes and changes in land use over time in the Pueblo Southwest. Her current research focuses on how (and to what extent) Pueblo people in the...

Biography: Nicole is a graduate student in Bioengineering, studying drug delivery using magnetically responsive soft materials in Dr. Wyatt Shields' lab. She graduated with an Honors BS in Bioengineering from Oregon State University in 2019, and has also been involved with Society of Women Engineers and CU Science Discovery. Website: www.linkedin.com/in/nicoleday19 Nichole served as graduate student mentor to Maximilian Bailey .

Biography: Nick is a graduate student working for Dr. Noah Fierer in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department. He is a microbial ecologist who specializes in the use of genetic sequencing techniques to study the ecology of microbial communities. More specifically, his research focuses on the genetic basis of adaptations that allow microorganisms (mainly bacteria and archaea) to live in environments with very limited nutrient pools and harsh environments conditions...

Biography: Yuka is a graduate student in the Physics Ph.D. program. She received her B.A. in Physics from Reed College in Portland, Oregon in 2017. Her undergraduate thesis focused on the characterization and generation of non-diffracting beams. She started her Ph.D. program at the University of Colorado Boulder and joined the Kapteyn-Murnane group in fall of 2017, where she is currently working on metrology techniques using table-top EUV light sources...

Biography: Joel is a PhD student in Geophysics at CU Boulder. He was a McNair scholar, TRIO peer mentor and LSAMP ambassador at Boise State University, where he studied Geology and Applied Mathematics. His research interests include remote sensing of subsidence and determining what role it has played in recent flooding events, particularly relating to coastal megacities. Joel conducts research using Satellite radar and high resolution optical imagery. When not...

Biography: Joewie is a doctoral student in the Department of Computer Science under the mentorship of Prof. Alessandro Roncone. In the Human Interaction and Robotics Group, he works primarily on problems at the intersection of robotics and reinforcement learning. Joewie is a graduate of Reed College (B.A. Mathematics, 2017) and the Georgia Institute of Technology (M.S. Computer Science, 2019). Website: https://hiro-group.ronc.one/joewie Joewie acted as Graduate Student Mentor to Marlenne Montanez...

Biography: Tim is a PhD student in the McKenzie lab in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. He studies host associated microbial communities, mainly in amphibians. The work he does in the McKenzie lab often falls at the intersection of ecology, microbiology, and conservation. For example, he is working on developing probiotic treatments to help amphibian populations declining due to the a recently emerged chytrid fungal pathogen. This pathogen...

Biography: T. J. McLemore is a PhD student in English specializing in contemporary American speculative literature and poetics with an emphasis on ecocritical approaches to science fictions. His research explores the ecological imagination through the lenses of environmental justice and biopolitics, science and technology studies, geographies of dispossession, and Afrofuturism. McLemore holds an MFA in Creative Writing–Poetry from Boston University. He is the author of the chapbook Circle/Square (Autumn House,...

Biography: Anthony is a PhD student in the Department of Information Science, where he studies how identity shifts and disclosures occur in social media, particularly around sensitive topics like gender and sexuality. BS ('15) and MS ('17), also in Information Science, from the Pennsylvania State University. Serves as his department's representative to UGGS. Heavily involved in the i3 Institute, which is a diversity initiative that identifies talented undergraduate students from...

Biography: Originally from El Paso, Texas, Annalisa Ugarte began their academic career at El Paso Community College before transferring to Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. As a McNair scholar, they investigated red photoluminescent Si nanoparticles for cellular imaging under the supervision of Dr. Andrea Goforth. After graduating with a B.S. in Chemistry, Annalisa was accepted into the Chemistry PhD program at CU Boulder. With an interest in biomaterials, they...