Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Outreach

Wanting a way to explore diversity within the astrophysics community, I started a research project looking at the correlation of time from submission to acceptance of astronomical papers for men versus women lead authors. I used data scraping techniques and a gender determining application program interface to determine the gender of around 4000 different first authors who published papers in 1998 and 2018. Using a Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test to decide if the two differing distributions for females and males come from the same parent distribution, we found that on average, in the years 1998 and 2018, there was a 2-week difference in elapsed time from submission to acceptance for male versus female first authored papers. We believe that although a 2-week difference may not be a substantial enough period to cause concern, it raises other issues within the community that must be addressed, such as the role nationality and intersectionality play in discrimination regarding academic literature

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• Gender Minorities and Women in Physics, Math, and Astronomy (GiWPMA) — 2023–Ongoing
  President, organizing committee member.
• PMA Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Outreach committee — 2023–Ongoing
  Graduate student task force member.
• Caltech Astrophysics graduate student mentorship chair — 2022–2024, 2025–Ongoing
  Facilitator for academic and social connections.
• PATHWAYS Symposium — 2025
  Organizer and participant.
• GWiPMA mentorship chair — 2024
  Facilitator for academic and social connections.
• Respect is Part of Research — 2024
  Organizer and facilitator.

Through GiWPMA, I have developed mentorship programming, professional development workshops, and peer-support networks serving undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and faculty members. As a member of the PMA Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Outreach committee's graduate student task force, I have contributed to departmental conversations with undergraduates, graduates, post-docs, and faculty about initiatives aimed at improving recruitment, retention, and climate for underrepresented minorities in physical sciences.

As the Caltech Astrophysics graduate student mentorship chair and, separately, the GWiPMA mentorship chair, I developed social programming to encourage interaction between junior and senior graduate students, undergraduates, and postdoctoral scholars multiple times a year, including dinners, hikes, museum visits, botanical gardens, and community markets. I organized and participated in the PATHWAYS Symposium, a one-day symposium bringing together women and gender minorities in physics and applied sciences to celebrate their research achievements and explore the diverse career paths available after earning a degree in these fields. I also organized and facilitated "Respect is Part of Research," a sexual harassment prevention workshop, training peers to lead small group discussions that help eliminate the taboo surrounding discussion of sexual harassment.

In 2023, I was invited to be a guest speaker for a Caltech Associates event centered around the search for habitable worlds. My talk was titled "How to find an Ewok: Detection and characterization of bodies outside our solar system" to celebrate the intersection of science fiction and my research for Star Wars day (May 4th).

• Caltech Associates Talk

Through Caltech's public outreach program, I regularly participate public astrophysics talks and panels. In 2025, I gave a talk, similar to the Caltech Associates talk, at an Astro on Tap event. A recording of this talk can be found below.

• Caltech Public Outreach