For me, a fundamental aspect of research is sharing knowledge with others. I really enjoy mentoring students, giving lectures, and taking part in outreach opportunities. While doing these, I learn a lot too: everyone has something to teach us!
Research mentoring
I regularly mentor undergraduate and graduate students on a number of research projects. If you are a student at ETH and would like to work with me for your thesis or semester project, please get in touch! Some of the available research topics can be found here and here, but I am always open to new ideas as well!
Institutional teaching
I have served multiple times as a teaching assistant, head teaching assistant, and instructor at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Here is a list of the courses that I have co-taught or assisted in teaching:
- Co-Instructor for Distributed Model Predictive Control (ETH)
- Co-Instructor for Projects in Machine Learning Research (ETH)
- Head of Teaching Assistants for Introductory Methods of Applied Mathematics (ACM 95/100, Caltech)
- Head of Teaching Assistants for Introduction to Probability Models (ACM 116, Caltech)
- Teaching Assistant for Robust Control Theory (CDS 231, Caltech)
- Teaching Assistant for Optimal Control and Estimation (CDS 112, Caltech)
- Teaching Assistant for Network Control Systems (CDS 141, Caltech)
Other teaching and outreach
I am a strong believer that education has the power to change lives! For this reason, I am very invested in teaching and outreach activities, specially in underserved communities. If you happen to know about some suitable opportunities, please let me know!
One of my favorite experiences during my Ph.D. was participating in Clubes de Ciencia: a non-profit organization that organizes summer intensive courses for senior highschool and freshman college students across different cities in Mexico. In 2023, I got selected to teach in Merida! I designed and co-instructed an interactive course aimed at familirizing students with the capabilities and intrinsic risks of language technologies. During our time together, students downloaded and tested different large language models and learned how to use Python to analyze some metrics of consistency and accuracy. They also explored the current limitations and challenges of artificial intelligence. The students grasped the importance of education and knowledge-sharing, and by the end of the course, they decided to create an amazing website (Spanish only) to share their learnings with friends, family, and future students.
I am also regularly invited to visit highschools with predominantly underserved students, where I share my personal experience and help motivate the students to pursue a scientific career.