I am a dedicated collaborator who thrives on discovering my role within a team. During my remote undergraduate years, I cultivated a sense of community among my peers by organizing study groups. Our weekly meetings tackled challenging concepts, brainstormed potential exam questions, and featured collaborative note-taking (Sample1a and sample1b). These undergraduate notes remain some of my most engaging, largely thanks to the camaraderie and humor of my peers. 

In study groups with repeating members, we often found ourselves settling into specific roles. Scheduling and planning our 1 hour weekly meetings were often under my charge, which was challenging given the all-encompassing nature of neuroscience. In order to make the most of our group meetings, I designed summary sheets for key concepts that we could fill in together (Sample2). Through this, we were able to work through our weaknesses and address any confusion with the group before it could affect our fundamental understanding of the subject.

This skill of designing lesson plans and scheduling study groups turned out to be extremely valuable in my current position where I teach fellow researchers how to process and interpret their MRI data. I have organized a summer internship for Master’s student in software engineering (Sample3) and hosted training sessions with graduate students and postdocs. This has not only allowed me to hone my teaching skills, but also enhanced my abilities as an MRI processing specialist as the true test of understanding is the ability to simplify (Sample4).