Here are some other projects I’ve led or been involved in.
MIT Physics Graduate Application Assistance Program
I am one of the co-founders of the assistance program for the Physics graduate program at MIT, PhysGAAP, which we kicked off as part of the Graduate Admissions Advisory Council at MIT Physics in 2020. PhysGAAP is designed to pair prospective graduate school applicants with current graduate students to assist them through the application process, provide insight into graduate school and the MIT Physics Department, provide feedback on their application, and answer any questions they might have.
Here is a link to more information on PhysGAAP as well as other student resources we managed to push through.
Encouraging Women Across All Borders
In the summer of 2019, I co-founded Encouraging Women Across All Borders (EWAAB) with my friend Kaitlin Gili. Our vision was to create a platform to support the confidence of young women. Our strategy became to:
- encourage undergraduate women to go outside of their comfort zone in their academic abilities as well as other passions and explore what’s possible,
- provide them with tools to boost their communication and leadership skills to be able to seize opportunities,
- connect them to a global support network of inspirational women, both junior and senior.
We managed to kick off the EWAAB mentoring program (later known as Encourage Her) at 8 universities ranging from Canada to Australia in the inaugural year, together impacting 27 mentees across 6 countries. Since then, EWAAB has expanded into a 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation.
In addition, we also operate the Her Story blog series. Here are my contributions:
- Research to Reach Out and Reach Out to Research: The Key to Creating Opportunities
- An Open Letter to the Ambitious Introvert
You can read more up-to-date information about EWAAB here. We were also featured in the Scientific American and SME (the largest Slovak newspaper).
Discover Summer Academy
In the summers of 2020, 2021 and 2022, I taught at the Discover Summer Academy. This is a week-long academic camp for high school students from Slovakia and beyond to learn exciting things beyond the high-school curriculum and participate in numerous workshops.
For the first two summers, I designed a week-long course in Quantum Physics, where we learnt about the recent developments in quantum information, quantum measurements and quantum imaging. We touched on topics like teleportation, detecting gravitational waves or potential future uses of quantum physics in medicine. For the third summer, I taught a course on Black holes, incorporating concepts from theoretical physics as well as astrophysics, touching on topics like event horizons, quantum gravity, and observational signatures of black holes.
Unimak
Unimak is a volunteer group of over 60 Slovak and Czech students from top universities around the world. Our mission is to spread awareness of the possibilities for young Slovaks and Czechs to study at world leading universities. Our activities include advising on issues related to choosing and applying to universities abroad, outreach talks, videos and blogs.
I was involved since entering my undergraduate studies in 2016. In 2019/2020, I served as the president.
Check out the website (in Slovak and Czech only) here.