Message from the team
We hope you’re all doing well and are taking good care despite last week’s unsettling event. In the wake of what happened in D.C., we believe it is now more important than ever to address white supremacy through community organizing. SEAS is committed to working together to support and empower undergraduate students from marginalized backgrounds at Oxy to pursue their academic and professional aspirations in STEM .
Updates and Upcoming Events
SEAS website
We have officially launched our SEAS website! Developed and designed by our team, the website provides key information regarding all SEAS projects including their background, purpose, progress, and future plans. We highly recommend you explore our site to learn more about who we are and to stay updated on our work!
Social media
We are now active on Instagram and LinkedIn. Connect with us!
Panelist form
We are incredibly excited to announce our first CATALYST event: a panel discussion on “Burnout, Imposter Syndrome, and Finding a Sense of Belonging in STEM”. Underrepresented minorities in STEM are often faced with these unique challenges, and we would like to use the event to validate these experiences and provide students with guidance on how to overcome these barriers in STEM fields. The panel will take place in mid-February, although the specific date and time are to be determined. If you are an Oxy alumnus and are interested in becoming a panelist, please let us know by filling out this short form. A small honorarium will be provided for your labor. We will be in touch with more details shortly!
Feedback form
We have created feedback forms so that alumni, students, and faculty can anonymously provide input on our work. If you’d like to leave any feedback for the CATALYST team specifically, please use this form. If you’d like to leave feedback for SEAS as a whole, please use this form. For future reference, these forms are also available on our homepage or here.
Each newsletter will feature some incredible CATALYST members through our student and alumni spotlights. We hope this reinforces our sense of community and helps connect mentors and mentees with similar interests!
Student Spotlight
Hello! I am Michelle Huang, a First-Gen student at Oxy. I am currently in my sophomore year, majoring in Chemistry. My passion for chemistry started in high school when I took AP Chemistry. Though it was challenging, understanding phenomenons from an atomic level was so exciting. Everything felt like magic. As I continued my interest at Oxy, I joined The Hill Lab during my freshman year and have taken part in exploring the malleability of the eye’s cornea ever since. Since I am pretty new to the field, I am still exploring different disciplines but I am thinking about pursuing a career that intersects chemistry with sustainability. To be honest, any career that allows me to travel would be great. Outside of academics, I enjoy beach days with friends, eating dim sum, and thrifting. A fun fact about me is that I was the captain of my high school’s flag football team!
Alumni Spotlight
Mudaser Basam graduated from Oxy in December of 2018 with his Bachelors of Arts (Honors) in biology. As an undergraduate, he joined Dr. Zellmer’s lab to research the distribution of slender salamanders across the urbanized environment of Los Angeles and explored his interests in computational biology. His first post-graduate job was at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center as a research associate studying the correlation between aging and breast cancer risk via in-silico research. Currently, he is a first-year medical student at the California University of Science and Medicine in San Bernardino, California. Mudaser’s motivation to become a physician comes from stories he heard about his open-heart surgery at 18 months old to repair a congenital defect. His mother recalls the profound impact the surgeon’s kindness and compassion had on her, both before the surgery when he explained the procedure and after carrying the stroller to the car. As a Middle Eastern woman who was not proficient in English, felt discriminated against because of her hijab, and relied on state-sponsored programs like Medicaid and WIC to support the family, compassion from a stranger was something out of the ordinary. He hopes to show that level of compassion to other underserved communities through his medical practice. Currently, he enjoys landscape photography, hikes along the Santa Monica mountains, exploring new restaurants, and misses playing volleyball.