Maryrose Barrios is a physics PhD student at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research is within the field of atomic physics, where she studies the quantum effects of ultracold atoms. An aspiring professor, she’s also committed to helping advance underrepresented students in STEM through education. Maryrose is a member of the Tule River Band of Yokuts in California. She has been a member of AISES since her undergraduate years at UC Berkeley. When she’s not in the lab, she enjoys hiking with her dog, scuba diving, and playing on the Georgia Tech Women’s Water Polo Team.
What do you hope your teachers would have to say about you?
I hope they would say that I’m teachable. I mean that in the sense that I would want them to see that I’m eager to learn, and happy to hear how I could improve my understanding. I believe that the best students are the ones who want to grow and do better, not necessarily the ones who are always the top performers. I would hope also they see that I try to be a respectful person. I always appreciate students who are respectful of my time and the right of other students to learn in the classroom. I think we as Native peoples tend to value respect, and that can translate really well to the classroom and lab environment as students and educators.
Do you often meet with your teachers or advisor?
As a graduate student, meetings with advisors can sometimes look different. For me, my lab is rather small so I see my advisor regularly, and we discuss the experiment I work on daily. That type of immediate feedback can be really helpful in guiding our lab’s efforts. When I was an undergraduate, however, I definitely found it harder to meet with my research advisor or a professor, mostly because I was shy and didn’t always feel confident about going to their offices. The higher up in your education you go though, the easier it becomes to interact with professors. Research really helped me build that confidence too, because you feel like you’re part of a team and you have more authority to be there and ask questions.
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