Professional Activities and Service, Outreach, Teaching, and Mentoring

Professional Activities and Service

2024 Selected participant in the Inclusive Leadership Workshop, Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. [Group photo]
2023 Selected participant in the NC State Building Future Faculty (BFF) Program, NC State University, March 29-31, Raleigh, NC. [Group photo]
2023 Selected participant in Science Forward: Towards Inclusive Excellence in Academia, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, March 20-21, Cold Spring Harbor, NY. A symposium to increase diversity, expand inclusion and uphold equity in basic science research at New York State’s academic research institutions. [Group photo]
2022 Neurodevelopment section co-chair and poster judge, Annual Drosophila Research Conference, April 6-10, San Diego. [pdf]
2022 Reviewer for CoNNeXins application “Colloquium at NYU for networking: Extramural for Invited Neuroscience Students”- a symposium event for external graduate students finishing up their PhD to share their work with the NYU community, learn about NYU neuroscience and network with Faculty and trainees [Link]
2021 – present Review Editor for Cellular Neurophysiology, Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience
2021 Certified peer reviewer course by the Elsevier Researcher Academy [pdf]
2020 ISOT virtual meeting certificate of attendance [pdf]
2020 iBiology online training course – Planning Your Scientific Journey [Certificate]
2019 – present ad hoc reviewer: PLoS Genetics (1), eNeuro (3), Genetics (10), Star Protocols (8) [Publons link] [eNeuro Acknowledgement of Reviewers]
2019-2021 Early Career Reviewer, Developmental & Behavioral Genetics section, GENETICS Peer Review Training Program [Link 1] [Link 2] [Certificate of completion]
2018 Helper, Two-day Software Carpentry Workshop, UCR [Link]
2018 9th annual ANGUS workshop, a two-week workshop for bioinformatics and cloud computing, UC Davis [pdf]
2018 Co-reviewer, The Journal of Neuroscience Reviewer Mentor Program (Mentor: Dr. Wayne Sossin) [Link] [pdf]
2016 Co-reviewer, eLife (Mentor: Dr. Anupama Dahanukar

Outreach

2023 Judge for Neuroscience discipline, 2023 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS), Phoenix, AZ [2023 Certificate]
2022 Judge for Developmental Biology and Genetics discipline, 2022 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS), Anaheim, CA [2022 Certificate]
2022 Course instructor for 10th-12th grade students, College & Career Lab, Neuroscience Outreach Group at NYU [Twitter]
2022-Present Project SHORT (Students for Higher-Ed Opportunities and Representation in Training) pre-grad mentor [Link]
2021 Judge for Developmental Biology and Genetics discipline, 2021 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS), Virtual Conference [Certificate]
2018 International Graduate Student Poster Fair, UCR
2018 Judge, Riverside County Science and Engineering Fair, Riverside, CA
2016 Entomology Outreach, 2nd Annual Riverside Insect Fair, Riverside Metropolitan Museum
2015/2018/2019 Neuroscience Outreach, Brain Awareness Day, Booth Demonstration, UCR

Teaching Assistant

2023 Fall, BIOL-GA -1001, Molecular Systems (Leading two recitation sections) [student evaluation, 16/40, excel; official evaluation from NYU, pdf; note that the recitations were optional and not all the students participated in the recitations and evaluations]
2022 Fall, BIOL-GA -1001, Molecular Systems (Leading two recitation sections) [student evaluation, 11/31, excel; official evaluation from NYU, pdf; note that the recitations were optional and not all the students participated in the recitations and evaluations]
2022 Fall, Developmental Neurobiology, Bucknell University (guest lecture on temporal and spatial patterning in Drosophila visual system) [student evaluations, 13/14 responses, excel]
2022 Spring, CMDB/BIOL 281F, Sensing the Environment, UCR (Zoom guest lecture on stochastic cell fate specification on insect visual system) [student evaluation, 3/3 responses pdf]
2022 Spring, BIOL-UA 22, Molecular Cell Biology II (Leading two recitation sections) [section 004 student evaluation, 25/27 responses, excel] [section 012 student evaluation, 18/25 responses, excel] [official evaluation from NYU, pdf]
2019 Spring, CBNS 124 Systems Neuroscience, UCR (Leading discussion and delivering three guest lectures on insect olfactory and gustatory systems) [student evaluation pdf]
2018 Fall, Dynamic genome, UCR [student evaluation pdf]
2016 Summer, Undergraduate summer research course in Drosophila genetics, UCR

Mentoring Undergraduate Researchers

New York University

2023 – present, Angelina Fordjour
- Awarded ABRCMS Student Full Travel Award (Fall 2023)
- NYU Mitra Fellow [Link]
2023 – 2023, Daniel Park
2023 – present, Elizabeth Abraham
- Awarded NYU Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund Grant (Fall 2023)
- Awarded ABRCMS the Best Poster Presentation in Developmental Biology and Genetics Section at ABRCMS (2023) [Award Ceremony Video; pdf]
- Awarded NYU Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund Conference Grant (Fall 2023)
- Awarded NSF Rising Scientist Award for 2024 TAGC Attendance (Spring 2024, $1950)
2023 – present, Gustave Li (NYU Shanghai student)
- Awarded ABRCMS the Best Poster Presentation in Developmental Biology and Genetics Section at ABRCMS (2023) [Award Ceremony Video; pdf]
- Awarded NYU Shanghai Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund (Spring 2023)
- Awarded NYU Shanghai Capstone Program Fund (Fall 2023, $6216.3 CNY)
2022 – present, April Li
- Awarded GSA Undergraduate Travel Award to The Allied Genetics Conference 2024 ($300, Link 1, Link 2, pdf 1, pdf 2)
- Awarded NYU Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund Conference Grant (Fall 2023)
- Awarded NYU Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund X2 (Spring 2023, Fall 2023)
2022 Summer, NYU SURP program, Chelsea Griffin
- Awarded ABRCMS Student Full Travel Award (Fall 2022)
2021 – present, Maisha Jacy
- Awarded NYU Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund X2 (Fall 2022, Fall 2023)
- Awarded NYU Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund Conference Grant X2 (Spring 2022, Fall 2023)
- Awarded NSF Rising Scientist Award for 2024 TAGC Attendance (Spring 2024, $1950)
2021 – 2023, Nathalie Shoji
- Awarded 2023 NYU Albert Borgman Thesis Prize for the best honors thesis in Science [News featured on NYU Biology webpage]
- Awarded NYU Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund X2 (Fall 2021, Fall 2022)
- Awarded NYU Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund Conference Grant (Spring 2022)
- Poster award for 45th West Coast Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference, Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, CA, April 9, 2022 [pdf]

UC Riverside

2016 – 2019, Sameera Ahmad, studying at UC Berkeley School of Optometry after leaving UCR
2016 – 2019, Kush Amin, in his gap year for applying medical school after leaving UCR
2014 – 2016, Erika Varady, pursuing her graduate degree at the University of California Irvine after leaving UCR

Mentee’s publication

Ahmad, S., Amin, K., Chen, Y. D, & Dahanukar, A. (2018). A Subset of Brain Neurons Controls a Sexually Dimorphic Proboscis Holding Behavior in Adult Drosophila Melanogaster. UC Riverside Undergraduate Research Journal, 12(1).[pdf]