My favorite part of being a Teaching Assistant at Temple is helping students make connections. Whether I’m guiding students through their first agarose gel or reframing concepts in recitation, I’m constantly reminded of why I enjoy teaching. My students’ questions and curiosity challenge me to go a layer deeper and refine my own understanding so I can present the material in ways that best support their learning. I’m truly honored and grateful to receive the 2025 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award and appreciate my faculty mentors and the students who inspire me every day.

When I was first starting graduate school, the idea of teaching a class was incredibly intimidating, but I quickly discovered how enjoyable it is to help students learn, make connections, and identify real-world applications of organic chemistry. I'm happy
to say that Iíll always have fond memories of helping set up experiments in lab, seeing the moment when a hard concept suddenly makes sense, or just chatting after recitation or while waiting for a reaction to finish. Teaching in both laboratory and traditional
classroom settings has presented unique sets of challenges, but the most fulfilling aspect of teaching in either case will always be seeing students succeed and grow. I would like to thank the faculty Iíve had the opportunity to teach under, Dr. Jaskiran Kaur, Dr. Steven Fleming, Dr. Serge Jasmin, and Dr. Adrienne Pesce; my fellow graduate students who have kindly filled in for the classes I wasnít around to teach; and most importantly the students whom Iíve had over the past couple of years.

What I cherish most about being a TA is the opportunity to support students through the rigors of the Computer Science curriculum. Courses like Operating Systems can be intimidating, and I viewed my role as being 'in the trenches' with my students to navigate these technical hurdles. Whether it was debugging code during office hours or breaking down complex projects into manageable steps, building those supportive relationships and watching students evolve from dependent learners to independent problem-solvers has been an incredibly fulfilling experience. I am also deeply grateful to the CIS department and my faculty mentors for trusting me with these responsibilities. Collaborating with them and learning from my students has significantly shaped my growth as both an educator and a researcher.

Serving as a teaching assistant in the Earth and Environmental Science department has been one of the most unexpectedly rewarding experiences I have had at Temple. When I began, I was more nervous about teaching than any other aspect of graduate school. Over time, however, this anxiety evolved into a new passion for mentoring, strengthened my own understanding of Earth and climate science, and taught me invaluable lessons about how to communicate science effectively. I have been blessed with several exceptional mentors and professors during my academic journey (including my advisor, Dr. Rebecca Beadling), and I have tried my best to emulate their styles and pass on the insight that they have shared with me. I am extremely honored to be recognized for my efforts of teaching students about the Earth and climate at Temple. 

I think the best aspect of teaching is the opportunity to experience the sparks of learning something new vicariously through the students. Witnessing their subesquent growth inspires me to do better not only as a teacher but in my own learning journey as a graduate student. The mental exercise I go through to tailor concept delivery to students of diverse backgrounds and learning styles has helped me in honing the skill of shifting perspectives in my own math work. It is a great honor to be a part of the force that helps shape lives of future generations and I will continue to try my best in fulfilling that role in whatever tiny way I can. Thank you to all students for being wonderful human beings and putting in their best effort. And of course, to all mentors from the Math department, especially the instructional faculty - you are the real unsung heroes and I deeply appreciate what you do.

The thing I enjoyed most about being a TA was how it constantly pushed me to understand the material more deeply as I explained it to students from very different backgrounds. Whenever I broke down a principle using simple, everyday examples, I found myself appreciating the subject even more-it was genuinely satisfying. Of course, there were moments when what seemed like a clear equation to me was confusing to students, and sometimes my accent made things harder as a non-native English speaker. But those challenges made the experience even more rewarding, and they strengthened my commitment to becoming a more patient and effective instructor. Meeting students even after the semester ended-and receiving emails from them when they were stuck on a physics problem-made me feel genuinely grateful to be someone they could trust for guidance.

I am grateful to receive the 2025 Outstanding RA Award. As a Research Assistant in the Kumar Lab, I have focused on using machine learning and comparative genomics to understand how very different species can independently evolve similar traits. In my recent Nature Communications paper, I helped develop an approach called Evolutionary Sparse Learning with Paired Species Contrast (ESL-PSC), which builds predictive genetic models for convergent traits such as C4 photosynthesis in grasses and echolocation in mammals and pinpoints the genes and amino acid sites that are repeatedly reused by evolution. I have a longstanding interest in extreme longevity, which has also evolved convergently, and I am now working on applying our method to understand the genetic basis of aging, among other projects. I really enjoy the stretches of quiet time where I can get completely absorbed in writing code, analyzing large protein alignments, and trying to make sense of the patterns we see, and it has been especially rewarding to have these ideas grow from early sketches into a full framework that other researchers can use to study convergent evolution.

As a Research Assistant in the Dr. Zdilla Lab, my research focuses on the design, synthesis, and structural characterization of coordination compounds and molecular solids for energy-storage applications, particularly solid electrolytes for lithium- and sodium-ion batteries. I work on understanding how metal-ligand coordination, crystal packing, and ion–ion distances influence ion transport behavior using techniques such as air-sensitive synthesis, single-crystal growth, X-ray crystallography, and electrochemical characterization. A major part of my work also involves developing scalable solid electrolyte systems, where I convert molecular cocrystals into flexible, processable electrolyte films by integrating polymers and secondary ligands to reduce interfacial resistance and enable practical manufacturing. What I enjoy most about this work is uncovering how subtle structural changes at the molecular level can dramatically impact macroscopic battery performance. The process of linking crystal structure to ion conductivity and real device behavior is especially exciting to me, as it connects fundamental inorganic chemistry directly to next-generation battery technology and real-world energy solutions.

I am honored to receive the 2025 Outstanding RA Award after several meaningful years of research in the CIS PhD program. I am deeply grateful for the support of Dr. Shi, Dr. Kumar, and Dr. Carnevale as well as the many lab members I have worked with across their groups. Their mentorship and collaboration created an environment where I could explore challenging questions at the intersection of computer science and biology and learn from people with a wide range of expertise. Working with these teams helped me grow as a researcher, sharpen my thinking, appreciate the value of interdisciplinary problem solving, and recognize my shortcomings as a researcher and as a person. I am also thankful for the opportunities to present our work in multiple conference and journals and engage with broader scientific communities. Altogether, these experiences have shown me that I want to pursue research that tackles real problems and contributes to practical solutions in science and human health.

I am deeply honored to receive the 2025 Award for Outstanding Research Assistant and am sincerely grateful to everyone who has offered guidance, support, and encouragement since I joined Temple in 2023. Some of the most meaningful aspects of my journey in Dr. Sujith Ravi's lab includes leading a pilot field study site in an emerging research area, winning a national competition, and building connections with researchers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers. As I continue to grow as a researcher, I hope to contribute rigorous, evidence-based research that supports communities-particularly those most vulnerable to environmental change and related challenges.

I am honored to receive the Outstanding Research Assistant Award for 2025. What I enjoyed most about my RA position was working at the intersection of mathematics, computation, and neuroscience. I particularly enjoyed building and refining computational models of neuronal dynamics, connecting theory with prior research, and seeing how small modeling choices could lead to different outcomes. This experience strengthened my problem-solving skills, helped me communicate complex ideas more clearly, and increased my confidence and independence as a researcher. I am deeply grateful to my academic advisor, Dr. Gillian Queisser, whose mentorship and guidance were essential to my growth and made this experience truly rewarding.

I am a theoretical physicist specializing in Quantum Chromodynamics, the theory describing the strong nuclear force, one of the four fundamental forces of Nature. My research focuses on generalized parton distributions (GPDs), which are mathematical objects describing the probability amplitudes of particle collisions in high-energy colliders. GPDs provide key information about hadrons, such as protons and neutrons, by offering a description of how their mass and spin are distributed inside. Their extraction from experimental data relies on factorization theorems, which separate short- and long-distance physics. As a PhD student, I contributed to strengthening the theoretical foundations of some of these theorems by resolving a recent controversy, linked to quantum anomalies, that had called their validity into question. I gratefully acknowledge this recognition and the constant support of my advisor and collaborators.