MISTI GTL in Wales 2022 Instructors
Amelia Dogan
Amelia is a Junior at MIT majoring in Urban Science and Planning with Computer Science and American Studies. Alongside her studies, she is currently a Research Assistant at the MIT Data and Feminism Lab. In addition to this, Amelia is a member of MIT Society of Women Engineers, MIT’s Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing Action Group, MIT’s Office of Minority Education Student Advisory Council, MIT’s Undergraduate Association Diversity Council, MIT's Associate Advisor, MIT's Asian American Initiative Executive Board and is MIT’s Campus Planning Undergraduate Representative. She has previously interned at Google and the US Department of Transportation which provided her with real world programming experience. Amelia has significant teaching experience at MIT which includes working as a Teaching Assistant for a Data Activism and Gender Based Violence module.
Amelia Seabold
Amelia, a Senior at MIT, is majoring in Planning and minoring in Biology. She is the Co-Founder of the MIT Slums and Informal Settlements Working Group where her work includes interviewing residents and INGO workers of informal settlements in Sierra Leone, and India and presenting research on Sierra Leone at the 18th Swiss Geoscience Meeting and 15th AESOP YA Conference. Amelia is also currently a Disaster Relief Program Support and Outreach Intern for Miyamoto Global Disaster Relief where she has written grant proposals for multiple foundations to support an irrigation project for the Kara tribe in Ethiopia. In relation to teaching experience, she has partnered with a global social enterprise called These Hands to co-teach a two-week workshop in Botswana about the design process to 40 community members. Through her teaching experience she has learnt that the best ways to aid students in understanding difficult topics and engage those who are uninterested.
Ashleigh Teygong
Ashleigh is a Senior at MIT majoring in Chemical Engineering and minoring in Management. She is no stranger to the MISTI Global Teaching Labs programme as she took part in the Global Teaching Labs in Germany 2020 programme teaching Biology. Ashleigh is now excited to travel to Wales to show students how exciting STEM can be and provide fun, realistic examples of what a career in their areas of interest could look like. She is the Co-President and Campaigns Director of the MIT Global Health Alliance where she oversees all inner workings of the organisation, leads executive board and organisation-wide meetings, manages fundraiser and educational initiatives centred around public health and social justice and has also developed a mentorship program for club members.
Cameron Kokesh
Cameron is a Junior at MIT studying Mechanical Engineering with a focus in Environment and Sustainability and additional focuses in Sustainable Development and Environmental Governance and Policy. She has previously taken part in the MISTI Global Teaching Labs in Mexico programme, where she was a mentor of the high school FIRST Robotics team at Tecnológico de Monterrey University in Mexico City. Cameron is the current Team Captain of the Solar Electric Vehicle Team at MIT where she leads a 60-person, student-run build team tasked with designing, manufacturing, building, testing and racing a solar-powered vehicle cross country. Cameron also has extensive teaching experience which includes being an Undergraduate Teaching Fellow for a first-year learning seminar and teaching and tutoring in an independent study BC Calculus group. She explains that teachers and mentors impacted her greatly, and it’d be exceptionally rewarding to play a similar role in the future.
Daniel Zhang
Daniel, a Senior at MIT, is ,majoring in Biology and minoring in Comparative Media Studies. As a MISTI Global Teaching Labs in Wales instructor, he hopes to build upon his past teaching experiences (which align heavily with GTL’s mission of using experimental and hands-on learning to foster curiosity) to embrace MIT’s motto of learning through mens et manus. Daniel is the Co-Director of dynaMIT! - leading the organisation in developing an interactive STEM-based curriculum to provide a comprehensive 2-week long summer program for low-income and under-exposed middle school students. He is also the Co-President of MIT’s Pre-Medical Society. As a STEM student at MIT, Daniel has had several opportunities to travel internationally to conduct research. He was selected to travel to Kwazulu Natal in South Africa to examine the medical, scientific, public health policy and advocacy response to a new epidemic. He has also travelled to Israel to conduct interdisciplinary neurobiology research and has been designated as a Science Scholar to travel to London and participate in scientific discussions, seminars, and lectures at the London Imperial College and Royal Geographic Society.
Elena Boal
Elena is a Senior majoring in Computer Science and Engineering and minoring in Spanish at MIT. She has a wealth of teaching experience and finds it incredibly rewarding to help students learn new concepts. Elena’s teaching experiences include being a Teaching Assistant for MIT’s Introduction to Python module, where she assists beginner programmers to understand and address introductory coding problems, and being a mentor for MIT’s CodeIt where she taught a group of 7th grade girls computer science by helping them understand programming fundamentals. Elena has worked as a Software Engineering Intern for Lyft, a Research Scientist Intern for iCAD and a Data Science Intern for UPF Functional Genomics Group. Since 2018, Elena has worked at MIT Camp Kesem (a group dedicated to organising camp experiences for children whose parents have been affected by cancer) as the Development Coordinator, Volunteer Coordinator and Co-Director. In her spare time, Elena is the Co-Captain of MIT’s Division III Lacrosse team, a member of the Society of Women Engineers, and enjoys yoga, scuba diving, snowboarding and juggling.
Julia Chatterjee
Julia is a Senior at MIT studying Mechanical Engineering with Sustainable Design. She is looking forward to teach subjects focused on sustainability, climate change and renewable energy and she wishes she had encountered them earlier in my academic career. During the Autumn of 2020 and Summer of 2021, Julia worked as a Recycling Innovation Engineering intern at Apple. Here, she revised product disassembly processes to improve material recovery and cost metrics, modelled e-waste recycling processes with a should-cost model and supervised machine learning and built an AR product disassembly guide to be used at global de-manufacturing facilities. In January 2021, Julia worked on a project at the AFFOA Advanced Functional Fabrics Workshop where she was responsible for designing recyclable performance apparel using engineered polyethylene fibres and presented project findings and apparel prototype at the 2021 MIT Sports Summit. Outside of the classroom, Julia was the Creative Director and Spread Lead for MIT’s fashion and design magazine for two years and is also a member of MIT’s Varsity Softball team.
Laura Schmidt-Hong
Laura is a Junior at MIT, majoring in Biological Engineering and minoring in Brain and Cognitive Sciences. She has extensive experience working in these fields which include her current Undergraduate Researcher role at the Koch Institute for Cancer Research, a recent Summer Scholar position at the Buck Institute for Research on Ageing and a Undergraduate Researcher position at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. Laura has also obtained experience at MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences where she submitted a shared first-author research manuscript for publication. Alongside her studies, Laura is also the Copy Chief for student-run newspaper The Tech where she leads the copyediting department, overseas the grammatical and stylistic consistency of articles and leads weekly copyediting meetings. Laura is an avid traveler and has visited Germany, Italy, France, China, and Brazil.
Missy Hill
Missy, a Junior at MIT, is studying Planning and Management. She has a wealth of experience working in her field of study as well as significant teaching and curriculum development experience. During the Summer of 2021, Missy worked as a Health Policy Intern at New America in Washington D.C. Here, she updated COVID-19 vaccine information for the Beat The Virus website and developed structure and content for new website sections on vaccine confidence and pandemic nutrition policy. Moreover, Missy has worked as a COVID Action Recovery Intern at the Mayor’s Office in Miami Beach, Florida where she researched the effectiveness of COVID policies to assist the Mayor’s Office with COVID response. In relation to teaching and curriculum design, Missy has recently worked as an Undergraduate Teaching Fellow for MIT’s first-year learning community, where she guided approximately 60 first-year students as they completed a group project on shipping innovation, and as a Public Data Empowerment Fellow for the Leventhal Map and Education Centre where she developed curriculum and taught public courses on maps, data and cartography.
Nick Schultz
Nick, a Sophomore at MIT, is a Mechanical Engineering student. He is excited to take part in the Global Teaching Labs in Wales programme not only to represent MIT but also see this academic growth in students he teaches. He has recently completed a placement as a Mechanical Engineering Intern at Novelis Aluminum in New York where he read and interpreted blueprints, technical drawings, schematics and computer-generated reports for use in small team applications and assisted with engineering calculations, design drawings, preliminary cost estimates and field visits to observe construction progress. In this short internship, he witnessed his designs come to fruition and helped minimise factory downtime. Nick is an Army ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) Cadet where he is a team leader and is accountable for his team’s growth. He also teaches younger cadets the standards and customs of the army. Nick is also currently a part of USASOC’s Hackathon, where he is currently working on and researching infrared as a form of battlefield communication. In his spare time, Nick is part of the MIT Varsity Swim Team and the MIT Poker Club.
Paige Forester
Paige is a Junior at MIT majoring in Mechanical Engineering. She has a great amount of experience working within this field, including working as a researcher for a year at MIT Sea Grant. Here, she wrote a MATLAB program to model seal whisker resonance frequency with user input of material, length and shape. Paige is looking forward to teaching during the Global Teaching Labs programme this January as she has a strong desire to make the world better, and with this principle that she lives her life by, she will educate her learners to reflect this. Alongside her academic and research experience, Paige is heavily involved in MIT’s sporting community. Since 2019, she has worked at MIT Little Beavers Running Club and is now the Director of the club. She is also a member of the Varsity Women’s Field Hockey team and dedicates more than 20 hours per week in season practicing, attending matches and participating in team lifting sessions.
Sarah Lincoln
Sarah is a Senior at MIT majoring in Biology and Women’s and Gender Studies. She is hugely looking forward to the Global Teaching Labs in Wales programme and experiencing the Welsh culture. In 2020, Sarah took part in the Global Teaching Labs in Italy programme where she produced and presented interactive Biochemistry and Organic Chemistry lessons for Italian students with a broad range of English proficiency. She believes that interactive lessons are key to fostering interest but are also super fun to make! Since 2019, Sarah has been a Training Coordinator for MIT MedLinks where she collaborates with MIT medical staff to provide health information, resources, and services to peers in her community. In this role she also organises continuing education segments for MedLinks which include topics such as accessing mental health resources, racism in healthcare and sexual health. Sarah volunteers at Boston Medical Centre as an Autism Friendly Initiative Intern. Here, she collaborates with patients’ families to produce individualised care and assesses the impact of initiatives.
Seraphin Castelino
Seraphin, a Chemical Engineering student, is a Junior at MIT. She is excited to teach subjects including Chemistry and Mathematics during the Global Teaching Labs in Wales programme as she is really passionate about these subjects and would love the opportunity to help make these subjects intriguing for students in Wales. Alongside her studies, Seraphin has acquired significant research experience within the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering’s Love Lab and Swan Lab. Her passion for Chemical Engineering is demonstrated further as she is also the Class of 2023 Representative for the MIT American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Seraphin has spent the last 6 years working as a Tennis Instructor where she has been responsible for organising and coordinating tennis training and activities for children ranging from ages 5-18. She is also on the MIT Varsity Women’s Tennis Team and dedicates over 20 hours per week to practice and compete.
Shruti Ravikumar
Shruti is a Junior at MIT majoring in Computation and Cognition. Alongside her studies, she is also currently an Undergraduate Research Assistant at Harvard University. Here, she is conducting an individual research project on how toddlers and infants understand social relationship. Over the summer, Shruti was also an intern for the NHS researching social media analytics tools and analytics to support targeted messaging. For the Global Research and Consulting Group, Shruti is the Co-Founder & President of MIT Chapter (2020) and Global Head of Growth (2021) which she launched to work closely with global NGOs and social impact startups to achieve their goals while simultaneously empowering students to give back to the global community. Shruti has also worked on projects which include analysing trends in public perception of public policy on social media and co-developing a proof of concept healthcare app to track symptoms on college campuses. The Co-Founder of Dougherty Math Circle, Shruti taught competitive math and spread passion for problem solving to more than 100 children - a project which saw her receive a Recognition Project Leadership Award from the California State Legislature. From this teaching experience, she has learnt how to create a curriculum, teach lessons and most importantly, how to adapt when things inevitably differ from the original plan.
Interested in joining our instructional team?
If you’re a STEM student (undergraduate or postgraduate) at a Welsh university and you’d like to teach alongside other instructors around the world through the Global Teaching Labs programme, please get in touch with Equal Education Partners.