Report: Panel Interview and Q/A with Priyanka Desirazu
About Priyanka Desirazu
I’ve been a Mentor since 2008 starting with the Global Challenge Award, a National Science Foundation competition that I’d won in 2007. I was a Mentor for the Agastya International Foundation where I trained Government school children in developing scientific models. At Johns Hopkins, I was on the Board of Directors for the Growing Minds Initiative - an NGO that worked on educational needs for Orphaned and Vulnerable Children in Tanzania. I’ve been a STEM Mentor and an Application reviewer for the Global STEM Alliance program, New York Academy of Sciences - 1000 Girls 1000 Futures Program and the Junior Academy for a few years now where I mentor high school students across the world. I’ve been a Mentor for Skillify and MentorNet and have enjoyed working with high school students applying for college and guiding them through college application modalities. I enjoy being a mentor for the Freedom Employability Academy (FEA) – an NGO based in India that provides large scale coaching and employability skill building to disadvantaged youth. At work, I mentor employees across the hospital in Clinical Research, Information technology and Nursing.
I was recently nominated to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Achiever’s List for "recognizing and empowering women (ages 11-19) across the world to take up STEM careers, via virtual mentoring". I recently received the “Leader of Impact” award from the “Entrepreneurs of Success” organization and will be speaking at their Conference later this year. I was also nominated to be a TED Fellow last year and have recently given a number of interviews talking about my journey in empowering Women in STEM.
On May 26th 2021, STEM 4 Everyone welcomed Biomedical Engineer, STEM Mentor and a recent Autocross car racer, Priyanka Desirazu, for a panel interview and Q/A. Priyanka was able to take some time to talk to the audience about her experiences as a woman in STEM, her mentorship and volunteer experiences and lastly, advised the next generation of STEM.
When talking about her experiences as a woman in STEM, Priyanka mentioned where she went to to get her undergraduate and graduate degrees in biomedical engineering and her experiences as a clinical research associate and clinical research coordinator. She also touched on the internships she took during her undergraduate and emphasized how internships are a great way to further advance in your education as it allows you to get your feet wet to learn different techniques that you might not be learning in college.
Priyanka gave the audience some tips on creating a college list and deciding where to go for college as well. She then spent some time explaining the mentorship and volunteer activities she took part in. Through her mentoring experiences, Priyanka realized that teaching and mentoring came easily to her because she was very passionate about it since it included her interests in mentoring and STEM.
She ended her talk with strong advice for the audience. She emphasized on how important it is to build a strong technical foundation, seek additional experiences such as internships and volunteer activities, take the initiative when given the opportunity, be mindful of others, pay attention to detail, communicate with clarity, create a brand for yourself(network), keep network platforms with LinkedIn and CV up to date, and don’t dismiss entry-level positions. For the remaining time of the panel interview and Q/A, Amina and Sahaana took turns asking Priyanka questions from the audience. The panel interview and Q/A was a success, and we thank Priyanka Desirazu for taking her time to share her experiences in STEM and give inspirational advice to the audience.
About the Author
Zoya Bukhari is STEM 4 Everyone’s podcast team lead. She is a junior from New York, USA. Zoya is passionate about STEM and activism. She hopes to share her passion for STEM through STEM 4 Everyone and that one day, STEM will be available to all. Outside of her advocacy work, Zoya participates in her soccer and softball teams, studies different cultures and watches as many shows and movies as possible.
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