Teaching and mentoring are strong passions of mine. I am dedicated to the inclusion of underrepresented students in higher education. As a first-generation woman of color who encountered many struggles throughout formal education, I feel empowered to guide other students who may currently be struggling with similar issues, and to bring them into the higher education pipeline. I currently mentor and advise students at Mount Saint Mary's University in Los Angeles, where the student body consists predominantly of first-generation, Latina women, in my role as primary investigator in the Little Athenians lab, and academic advisor to 35 undergraduate students. 

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Teaching

In all of my courses I enable students to develop critical thinking and self-awareness skills by discussing both empirical and mainstream literature and by incorporating hands-on, self-reflection activities. A particular goal of mine is also to improve student's writing skills; I incorporate writing workshops and writing assignments of various forms into all of my courses. 

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Please see my Teaching Vitae for a list of the courses I've taught. ​

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Advising and Mentoring

At Mount Saint Mary's University, I advise 25 psychology-major, and 10 psychology-minor students per semester. I guide these students in their course- and career-planning. My focus is in helping students to make long-term career plans that they feel passionate about, and to connect them with other professionals to gather the most comprehensive information so that they may make their career-planning decisions. 

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In my role as the principal investigator of the Little Athenians Lab at Mount Saint Mary's, I also supervise undergraduate students as they design their own research projects and encourage them to present their findings at national and international conferences. I spend many hours with these research students, both as a team and independently, to design, analyze, and organize presentations about research studies that THEY have created. I strive to expose these, and other students to the ways that research can impact their own careers, the field of psychology, and the world at large. 

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Finally, up until recently (October 2021) I was also the faculty supervisor for the Student Psychology Club, at the Chalon campus of MSMU. At least twice per year I hosted a club event in which we talked about life after graduation, for students interested in pursuing a career in psychology. Topics of these conversations have included prepping for the GRE, career paths, asking for letters of recommendation, the differences between Ph.D., Psy.D., and Master's degree programs, and more. 

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