My science engagement and activism goals are two-fold: (1) to create space for traditionally underrepresented voices in the sciences and (2) to make science personally relevant to broader publics. While these efforts may involve translating jargon, they oftentimes require considering the larger structural barriers that have historically excluded people from STEM. I regularly advise on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) issues at the University of Rhode Island and center my work and activism around these values.

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I (an East Asian-American woman with shoulder length hair and two strips of blonde next to my ears) am posing with my book, which has a map of Houston in watercolored effect with the title: "More City than Water: A Houston Flood Atlas".

I am sitting in a recording booth filled with instruments and a mic with a black cardigan on that has fishes on it. T

Slide from a virtual awards ceremony showing my face above-water in the Caribbean next to text describing the award: 2021 URI Diversity and Inclusion Excellence Award, Graduate Student Excellence Award.

Four panelists, including myself, speaking at a panel about "How to Apply to Graduate' Programs in the Sciences. We are sitting in front of a slide presentation with the same text in a classroom.

A photo of me in a cat costume/onesie in front of my Introduction to Ecology students.

A group of students sitting around a table in a small lab meeting room in Indonesia. My labmate and I are helping students one-on-one with their coding questions.

I am standing in front of a wooden platform giving a speech at Rice University.

I am in front of a wooden platform with another graduate student with four faculty member panelists sitting to my right-hand side in front of a projector slide that says "Conversations with URI Faculty: Social Responsibility and Equity in STEM research".

A bird's-eye view of the Houston Museum of Natural Science main exhibit floor, which has large marine fishes and sharks hanging from the ceiling. Museum visitors are examining life-sized photos of coral reefs from the Texas Gulf Coast and Florida as part of a World Ocean's Day event.

Three large projections of my title slide "Fishing for Genes: Surveying marine diversity using Environmental DNA" at an auditorium at Rice University.

I am standing in front of students in at Lanier Middle School in their main auditorium and presenting on my experiences as a marine scientist.

I am shown in a classroom with my classmate presenting on coral reefs to high schoolers from the Houston Independent School District. I am wearing a green shirt and blue shorts.

I am presenting a slide on seafood fraud as part of my seafood class. I am wearing a grey shirt,

College students are standing around a craft table screen-printing t-shirts. This is an innovation space at Rice University.

Four screen-printed corals in different variations of blues, pinks, and reds from an outreach event.

I am on a life-sized coral reef banner with a mosaic mural of a coral reef behind me and talking to young children about coral reef ecosystems.

I am sitting on the hill of James Turrell's Skyspace adjusting a woven plastic bag hammock/sculpture installation my classmate and I did as part of a science and art class.

Teaching

U. Rhode Island - Teaching Assistant

NRS 223 (Sp-20) Conservation Biology

NRS 417 (Sp-19) Herpetology

NRS 100 (Sp-19) Natural Resources Conservation

BIO 262 (F-18) Introductory Ecology

Rice University - Instructor on Record

COLL 127 (Fall '17)

Sea(food) Differently: A Fishy Investigation of Marine Resource Use

Syllabus

teaching materials available upon request!

scicomm

Click on the icons below to be redirected to some of my non-academic science writing, including opinion pieces, general research and conference summaries, and creative non-fiction nature writing. My pieces have been published in a book, newspaper blogs, and university magazines.