Introducing Your GradSuccess Team...

We are starting off the 2022-23 academic year with some exciting changes in GradSuccess!

[Image Description: A round green cartoon creature wearing a feathered hat bounces up and down and waves its arms in the air.]

Pictured: This is how excited we are!

First, please join us in welcoming a new member of our student staff. Lauren Hammond is a sixth-year PhD candidate in English and our new Lead Consultant in the Graduate Writing Center. Her research focuses on the materiality of gender, sexuality, and identity in punk subcultures. In her free time, she works out with her dogs and takes care of her extremely cute new baby. Lauren's been a part-time writing consultant with us for several years and we're so happy she is continuing with us in this new role. If you'd like to work with Lauren on any aspect of your writing, you can schedule an appointment with her at https://ucr.mywconline.com.

 

We are also welcoming two new full-time staff members this week!

 

Monique Posadas, our new Mentorship Coordinator, comes to us after nearly a decade overseeing McNair Programs at Cal State Fullerton and Cornell. She is currently a doctoral student in the School of Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University, with research foci in education history and minority graduate student success, and received her MA from Syracuse University in Cultural Anthropology. She and her husband, a UCR grad student, are proud parents to a little girl.

 

Anne Sullivan is a Highlander through and through - she received both her PhD and her BA in English from UCR! After three years as a Visual Cultures postdoc at CalTech and a pandemic-delayed fellowship at UT Austin's Ransom Center, Anne is returning to UCR as our new Teaching Assistant Development Program Coordinator. TAs should keep an eye out for her pedagogy workshops, starting in October.

 

 

We'll be doing more in-depth posts on Monique and Anne later on this Fall, complete with contact information, office hours, and more!

Alongside all of these changes, we're grateful for the warm welcome provided by some familiar faces returning to GradSuccess.

 

[Image Description: An older Australian gentleman in front of a colorful backdrop stretches out his arms and says, "Welcome back everybody, we love you."]

Pictured: The gang's back together!

 

Regulars at our weekly coffee socials will be glad to see that Nathaly Martinez and Kristoffer Ekroll will be Lead Consultants with the Graduate Student Resource Center again this year.

 

Kristoffer Ekroll is a fifth year PhD student in English working on representation and navigation of architecture and space in Gothic and horror, oftentimes with a queer lens. Kristoffer (or Kris) came to the US from Norway and enjoys hiking, cooking, baking, and photographing odd things. You can reach him at gsrc@ucr.edu.

 

 

Nathaly Martinez was a UCR undergrad and then went east to Harvard for a Master's in Higher Education. She is now a PhD student in Higher Education Administration and Policy. During her free time (if she has any!), she enjoys spending time reading, exercising, traveling, and watching movies with her dog Honey. She can be reached at gradsuccess@ucr.edu.

 

 

We also welcome back Judy Zhu, our former GSMP Co-Coordinator, in the new role of Coordinator of the University Teaching Certificate program. Judy is a Ph.D. candidate in Higher Education Administration and Policy focusing on race and racism in U.S. higher education, particularly on the racialized experiences of Asian American college students. In her free time, Judy loves to go on little adventures with her friends and her three sweet fur babies!

 

Matt Arthur will return as GradQuant's Lead Consultant. Matt is an Applied Statistics PhD student at UCR. Prior to his graduate studies, Matt worked in the actuarial field, where he analyzed corporate data to model and quantify uncertainty associated with company assets and liabilities. Matt received B.S. degrees in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Minnesota Duluth, as well as a B.A. in Economics. His research interests include computational statistics, experimental design, and data mining with applications in biology and medicine. You can schedule an appointment with him at https://ucr.mywconline.com.

 

Rounding out the GradSuccess team are Alexis Smith, Coordinator of the Graduate Writing Center, and Jason Chou, Coordinator of GradQuant and the Graduate Student Resource Center.

 

 After completing her BA in English and Anthropology at West Virginia University, Alexis completed an MA in Applied Linguistics at the University of Alabama. She also spent a year teaching English composition at Sias International University in Xinzheng, Henan, China. Before coming to UCR in 2021, Alexis worked with graduate students and multilingual writers at the Texas A&M University Writing Center. In her spare time, Alexis enjoys running, reading, and watching horror movies. If you'd like to work with Alexis on your writing, you can make an appointment with her at https://gwc.ucr.edu.

 

Jason has been supporting student success at UCR since 2004. He has an M.A. in TESOL as well as a B.A. in Physiology and Cell Biology (UC Santa Barbara), and his background includes studies in higher education, philosophy, and music production. He enjoys spending time with his family, and in his solo moments he likes to read, play guitar, surf, or observe clear night skies with binoculars and a telescope. 

 

 

Finally, GradSuccess Director Hillary Jenks continues to hold office hours online every Thursday from 2-4pm (https://ucr.zoom.us/j/99945920327), or you can email her for an appointment at hillary.jenks@ucr.edu. She's been a tenure-track professor, a museum director, and managing editor of an academic journal, among other things, so come talk to her about fellowships, teaching, publication, and professional development and careers!

 

Welcome back to campus everyone, and we look forward to serving you in the new academic year!

 

[Image Description: Nemo (the fish) repeatedly bounces on his unseen dad while shouting "First Day of School! First Day of School!"]

Pictured: We can all do with a little Nemo in our lives... :)