PSO Scholarship Recipient Testimonials

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Scholarship Recipient Testimonials:

Chetana Acharya (Summer 2024 – Undergraduate Academic Affairs)

Thank you for supporting me in participating in the Germany Today (2024) program, hosted by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service). We were a group of 22 university representatives (16 from the US and 6 from Canada) and we visited 12 German universities, research institutes, and corporate partners in Frankfurt, Heilbronn, Stuttgart, Reutlingen, Augsburg, and Munich. Our delegation met with representatives at each place and learned about the German higher education systems as well as best practices on technology transfer and innovation. Over 5 days, we visited eight universities, one company, and one foundation/think-tank!

Germany Today (2024) was an opportunity for cultural and academic exchange, between our German hosts and the North American guests, as well as across all the university representatives. Our cohort was very cohesive and engaged fully. In fact, we are meeting via Zoom in early August to share reflections, and to hear what collaborations are getting set up. In addition, we have another check-in in December 2024. We plan to stay connected and be resources for each other and our students.

While in Germany, we had robust conversations about partnerships and encouraging skilled Americans and Canadians to apply for opportunities in Germany. We also discussed serious topics such as diversity, equity, and inclusion within German universities and society. Among the North Americans, we had some similar vocabulary and expectations around diversity, however, it was quite different in the German context. As a scholarship advisor at UW, I am committed to supporting students to go for opportunities that are inclusive and safe. I learned about the different educational systems in Germany and the variety of universities. Some high school students make decisions to pursue vocational studies and get hands-on training and certifications. Others track towards more academic training, pursuing a bachelor’s degree and possibly even master’s and Ph.D.! Additionally, most German universities were not campus universities – but are buildings sprinkled within a town or city, resulting in much more integration within the community.

Since being back at UW, I have already discussed opportunities in Germany with multiple students. I shared specifics about the institutions I visited, and I also helped to identify styles of universities for the students to explore. This will continue, especially as I support and advise for the DAAD scholarships this fall and beyond. I have discussed my experiences with my immediate team, collaborators, and leadership. I intend to present a little more broadly with colleagues via the UW Association of Professional Advisers and Counselors (APAC) as well as nationally via the National Association of Fellowships Advisors (NAFA). These presentations will build my confidence and will help me take on more leadership in my profession and within UW.

Olivia Schultes (Summer 2024 – Department of Global Health)

From August 12-14, I attended a professional conference on coding in R hosted by Posit. I attended in person to take advantage of the fact that the conference was in Seattle and benefitted both during the workshop on the first day and during the two-day conference that followed. I attended the workshop “From R user to R programmer”, which focused on improving code by using iteration in the tidyverse syntax. Iteration is extremely important in code; it reduces copying mistakes, makes updating and sharing code easier, makes code more efficient, and is considered best practice. Though I am familiar with some methods of iteration, learning how to use functions such as across() and map() will be helpful because they are part of the tidyverse, which is the primary style of coding that I use in my day-to-day. In addition to the lecture and support the day of, I will continue to have access to the workshop materials and links to additional resources through a course website that remains live after the conference.

In the main part of the conference, I attended several talks and gathered information directly relevant to my current role. Some talks focused on the newest package developments in R, such as Quarto, a new package that is used to produce documents and interactive dashboards. Because R is an open-source software that is constantly changing based on package development led by companies or the community, is helpful to keep current on the most cutting-edge tools available, as well as the future direction of which tools will be maintained and which will become obsolete. In addition, I picked up individual functions and packages that may be helpful to my workflow, such as a tool for handling conflicting functions from different packages and a package that facilitates data import from Google Sheets.

I also benefitted professionally from this conference. Over the three days, I was able to network and connect with other R users from public health and other industries. This was exciting because R is a smaller, more niche programming language, and I didn’t know what types of industries and roles used it outside of public health researchers. I was also able to attend talks on navigating a career in data science and the presenters had good ideas that I intend to implement, such as building a public portfolio of work. Finally, at a social event after the conference, I connected with the local chapter of R-ladies, which creates welcoming spaces for people to learn and teach R. I was not aware of this group prior to the conference and am excited to get involved.

I would like to sincerely thank the UW PSO for helping to fund my attendance at the Posit conference. It was an experience I truly enjoyed, and I got a lot of value out of attending.

Sean Galagan (Summer 2024 – Department of Global Health)

Attendance at the Posit Conference 2024 was invaluable both to my own individual professional development as well as to my functioning as a manager of seven other staff members conducting data management and analysis. Individually, I attended a one-day hands-on workshop focusing on the use of loops and functions in the statistical software R. As R is the primary statistical coding language in which I do my technical work support research stuff, this workshop was invaluable to building my technical skills by making my programming more efficient and flexible thereby advancing my career goals as someone who not only provides leadership and management to research studies but also has strong technical skills. Additionally, throughout the other two days of the conference, I networked with other R users doing similar (or often quite different) work, was exposed to new packages and techniques that have been released, and learned about data management systems that other groups have developed to solve similar problems that my team and myself are constantly trying to solve. With technical skills such as statistical coding, there are constantly new tools and packages being developed and released and it is essential as an individual to stay on top of these developments to continue to learn and improve your skills.

Additionally, this conference was an excellent resource for someone in a leadership position who manages a team of data managers and who collaborates with a wide group and international collaborators as part of multisite international research studies. By learning about the newest updates to R as well as new packages, I am better able to support my team and guide them to the most appropriate tools to use when they encounter issues. We build systems that allow us to collaborate efficiently not only within our team but also across organizations and learning about the newest techniques and tools for research collaboration is essential to our ability to develop high-quality data management and analysis systems and to effectively support our research partners. Part of this support is providing technical capacity building and access to knowledge-sharing platforms, and I was able to learn about the new platforms such as Quarto Live and WebR for free and accessible training in R code.

I am incredibly grateful to PSO for their support in my attending this conference!

Rachel Leong-Sato (Summer 2024 – Evans School of Public Policy & Governance/Student Affairs)

The NACE Institute was a boot camp in Career Coaching best practices and a connecting point for professionals in the field to discuss common challenges and generate innovative ideas. Over five days, we covered the following topics: Visual Thinking to Enhance Career Coaching, Coaching skills and practice management, Coaching for Diverse Populations, and Ethical and Professional Practices in coaching. The Visual Thinking session covered different methodologies of design thinking using tools that allow for imagery, creativity, and perspective-taking. Knowing that my student population usually gets stuck in very professional, sterile, logical thinking – a tool like visual thinking could be an engaging tool that helps them think outside the box. This could also be a very useful tool for neurodiverse students who might benefit from alternative modes of processing and reflecting.

The Coaching Skills and Practice Management session covered psychological theories that could be used in coaching practices. Distinguishing between counseling as a licensed therapist and coaching as a higher education professional, we discussed how we decide what is within the scope of our roles and what is beyond our scope. While we may be able to assist with processing motivations informed by social context, we are limited to goal setting as a coach and referring out to resources and other experts.
In the Coaching for Diverse populations, we were able to discuss multiple salient identities that students may hold and common challenges among them. Our group had a fruitful conversation about emerging populations and our experiences with supporting them. The Ethical and Professional Practices session covered the importance of boundaries to a coaching relationship and the mindset a coach should have while creating trust with a client. Keeping in mind the policies, laws, and public records is important in keeping records of clients.

The impact of this institute on my professional work allowed me to refresh my coaching approach and discuss current challenges in the field with others in higher education. I found it incredibly helpful to give me tools and resources to serve my students better and to create some foundational practices in my office.