Purdue Graduate Mentoring Fellows Program

The Graduate School's Mentoring Fellows Program was established in 2022 as part of a three-year initiative to improve mentoring at Purdue University. In the Spring of 2022, Emily Garcia (Industrial Engineering), alongside Rachel Gehr (Engineering Education) and Suzanne Swaine (Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering) were selected to represent the College of Engineering. With two faculty mentors, Christopher Brington (Electrical and Computer Engineering) and Jose Rispoli (Biomedical Engineering), the Engineering Mentoring Fellows identified different aspects of the advisor-student mentoring relationship that needed to be evaluated, improved or highlighted.

Over the Summer of 2022, they worked to design and implement a new College-wide Individual Development Plan (IDP), created a survey to better understand faculty perspectives on mentoring and developed a series of seminars for the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 semesters. Among these various efforts, Emily was particularly in charge of developing each seminar's content and material. 

Findings regarding the findings and impact of the IDP, faculty survey and seminar series have been published in Assessment and Support of Advisor-Student Mentoring for Graduate Engineering Students at a Land-Grant Institution for the proceedings of the 2023 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference & Exposition.

For a highlight of these initiatives, click here. 

Seminar Series

Purdue Engineering GradTrack Program

GradTrack is an online mentoring program developed by the Purdue Engineering Office of Graduate Education. It builds a graduate school focused community and mentoring network for both undergraduate and graduate underrepresented minority (URM) engineers.

The program aims to disrupt the cycle of engineering graduates, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, not pursuing advanced degrees. GradTrack scholars emerge with an increased understanding of current graduate students' experiences, as well as with a completed application to graduate school or a summer research opportunity. 

Through the use of mentoring circles, seven to nine undergraduate students are paired with two current Purdue Engineering graduate students. This approach fosters confidence and allows students to feel comfortable as they dive deeper into relevant topics through small group discussions. 

Emily has served as a GradTrack mentor for the Fall of 2023 and 2024.

Applying to Graduate School Quick Tips

Undergraduate Students Mentored

Name, Undergraduate Institution, Graduate School

• Eliana Duarte* - University of Florida - PhD Student at Georgia Institute of Technology

• Hailey Garcia - University of California, Berkeley

• Rosa Laureano - University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez

• Vinithra Seshan - California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

• Ellie Vaserman - Massachussetts Institute of Technology

• Tamia Grant - University of Virgin Islands

• Niklas Anderson - Purdue University

• Kyle Havey - Brigham Young University

• Andrea Sepulveda Vargas - University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez

• Jorge Duarte - New Jersey Institute of Technology - Phd Student at University of California, Berkeley

• Susanna Eng - California Politechnic State University, Ponoma

• Eric Cobos* - Purdue University - PhD Student at Carnegie Mellon University

• Ashley Miranda - Arizona State University

• Anthony Espinoza - University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• Mychal Amaofo* - University of Pittsburgh - PhD Student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

• Paola Urbina Ramos - University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez

*National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) Recipient or GEM Fellowship Recipient

Purdue LTC-PIE Lab

The Long-Term Care Policy/Program/Intervention Evaluation (LTC-PIE) Lab, led by Dr. Zachary J. Hass, conducts research on evaluating policies, programs and interventions that impact health systems that serve vulnerable and older adult populations, such as long-term care, home and community-based services, adult protective services, and efforts to address issues in rural health.

Name, Undergraduate Institution and Program, Graduate School

• Daniela Carbonell Gonzales - Purdue University, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering

• Tongwei Zhang - Purdue University, Computer Science - Master's Student at Rutgers University

• Iris Charlene Layadi - Purdue University, Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering - Undergraduate and Master's