The Sister Mary Ambrosia Fitzgerald Mentoring Award is given to individuals who have served as an exemplar of formal or informal mentorship of STEM learners outside of classroom teaching.
Congratulations to BME graduate student Miya Paserba, who received the Sister Mary Ambrosia Fitzgerald Mentorship Award on April 7.
This honor is one of several given as part of the Willie Hobbs Moore Awards, hosted by U-M’s Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) office.
The Sister Mary Ambrosia Fitzgerald Mentoring Award is given to individuals who have served as an exemplar of formal or informal mentorship of STEM learners outside of classroom teaching.
Paserba said that the selection committee cited her active volunteering for elementary, middle, and high schoolers through her involvement with outreach activities on campus, and for her informal mentorship in the lab with undergraduate students, and other female graduate students as the co-director of the Graduate Society of Women Engineers.
“I’m truly honored to receive this award, and would like to highlight that I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish so much without the help of my Graduate Society of Women Engineers (GradSWE) officers, who are the ones who help to put together amazing events for grad students, undergrads, middle schoolers, and Girl Scouts,” Paserba said. “These amazing women use their voices to advocate for themselves and leverage their skills to create meaningful change in their communities. My role as co-director is simply to actively listen to others, offer guidance when necessary, and cheer on my colleagues from the sideline!”
Paserba said that volunteering can happen in a variety of ways. “If you aren’t comfortable with standing in front of a classroom and leading a lesson, you can help organize events in other ways, such as creating advertising materials, keeping paperwork in order, or connecting students to external resources,” she said. “I also encourage you to try new things. I didn’t think I would be fit to be a co-director of a large organization, but found that the role came more naturally than I had expected!”
In 2013, the University of Michigan Women in Science and Engineering office established the annual Willie Hobbs Moore awards to honor faculty, staff, and students who demonstrate excellence promoting STEM as a pathway for all learners. WISE celebrates achievement and outstanding advocacy for broadening participation in STEM with four awards bestowed annually at the Willie Hobbs Moore award ceremony. The ceremony is named to honor the accomplishments of Willie Hobbs Moore, the first African American woman at Michigan to earn a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering and the first African American woman in the country to earn a Ph.D. in physics.