Nikafareed Papari

STEM Muse connects and supports students in STEM higher education and industry via networking and mentorship to patch the leaky pipeline. As PhD students at UT Austin and women in STEM, we realized that students are often isolated in their degree programs and unaware of career options outside of medicine and academia, experiencing little exposure to industry careers and few opportunities to engage meaningfully with prospective employers. To address these challenges, Sophie founded a UT organization, and within that org, with Damla, a mentorship program to provide sustained, individualized guidance for undergrad and grad students in STEM fields at UT and opportunities for them to explore industry careers. The program blossomed to serve over 1000 participants (students of any gender, with a focus on women) in 2023. Inspired by success stories including mentees landing jobs & internships, STEM Muse was launched to extend our impact & scale beyond UT. "The program allowed me to spend enough time getting to know my mentee that I felt comfortable recommending her for hire and she was offered a summer internship at my company. It was wonderful and rewarding to watch her grow" "Participating... has been so fulfilling and valuable for me. I observed so much growth from my mentee" "Getting to know my mentor really humanized the STEM field and made it look achievable to me as a 1st gen college student" "...this program was essential to me... not falling behind in terms of building my soft skills despite purely being on zoom" "I would highly recommend this program! I achieved my goal of becoming an undergraduate research assistant... became more exposed to qualitative data analysis, and more networking skills... I really appreciate this program as it helped me grow more as a student and person." "10/10 would recommend... I have been in a lot of mentorship programs... and this was by far the best and most organized"