Graduate student Sophia Mayone wins teaching award
Sophia Mayone, a doctoral student in the David Wood Laboratory for Applied Protein Engineering, has been selected for the 2023 College of Engineering Office of Graduate Education's Exemplary Graduate Student Teaching Assistant.
Mayone was nominated for the award by several of her students, who highlighted Mayone's clear and open communication style, strong articulation of challenging concepts, and availability during office hours. Mayone's positive impact on her students is clear, with most students emphasizing how her enthusiasm made them more eager to learn.
"I have a few priorities when teaching," Mayone said. "I like to keep things in teaching environments light and fun, so students feel more comfortable asking questions and/or identifying areas where they need help. A huge part of my teaching philosophy is being able to clearly communicate technical information. Especially in engineering, much of the work we see is equation-heavy, but just writing down a solution is not going to help the process stick in a student's head. I try to supplement my explanations of material with real-life applications that might help the material be absorbed better," she explained.
The COE Graduate Award for Exemplary Graduate Student Teaching Assistant comes with a $500 prize. Mayone and other College of Engineering Graduate Award winners will be brought together sometime this summer for a group photo and a celebration of their achievements.
In the Wood Lab, Mayone's research is focused on purifying different therapeutic proteins expressed in both mammalian and bacterial systems. She has a few different proteins that she is currently studying, but the common theme involves using Wood's split intein system to produce pure, tagless proteins. "It is important that these proteins do not have tags or unnecessary amino acids, called 'scars,' because this helps minimize the risk of an immune response from patients," she said.
After graduation, Mayone hopes to work in downstream processing--specifically purification--for biologic drugs.
The Office of Graduate Education presents four awards a year to an Outstanding Leader in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Service; an Outstanding Graduate Student Organization; an Exemplary Graduate Student Researcher, and an Exemplary Graduate Student Teaching Assistant.
College-wide, winners of the four honors were Samantha Mendez (MSE), the Graduate Chapter of the Society of Women Engineers; Xiang Yue (CSE), and Sophia Mayone (CBE).
