Salma Ayoub, a biomedical engineering graduate student, is the recipient of the 2018 JoyLynn Hailey Reed Graduate Student Achievement Award. The award recognizes an outstanding graduate student mentor in UT Austin’s Intellectual Entrepreneurship Program.
Salma Ayoub and the graduating seniors from the Willerson Center for Cardiovascular Simulation, left to right: Ethan Kwan, Michelle Lu, Salma Ayoub, Jessica Kim, and Nivedha Ravi.
Salma Ayoub credits having a strong mentorship experience during her own time as an undergraduate with one of the reasons she spent the last three years serving as a graduate student mentor.
Ayoub, a biomedical engineering graduate student, is the recipient of the 2018 JoyLynn Hailey Reed Graduate Student Achievement Award. The award recognizes an outstanding graduate student mentor in UT Austin’s Intellectual Entrepreneurship Program.
Ayoub works in the Willerson Center for Cardiovascular Simulation with Professor Michael Sacks. She mentored four undergraduate students also working in the center.
“It’s fulfilling to know that a simple act of kindness, such as listening to an undergraduate asking for advice, can have a long-term impact,” Ayoub said of her mentorship experience. “Having strong mentors as an undergraduate at Rice University made a difference in my own educational experience.”
Senior Jessica Kim, one of Ayoub’s mentees, credited the experience with helping her realize her own potential.
“Having Salma as a mentor helped me be more confident in myself, which is important to me as a woman in STEM,” Kim said.
Ayoub added that the mentorship program provides a platform for undergraduate students specifically interested in graduate school. The connection-making program gives graduate students a unique teaching experience and undergraduates students the opportunity to gain real-world knowledge, helping prepare them for careers in the classroom and beyond.
“Mentorship from Salma helped me figure out what kind of leader I want to be while working on a team, like our senior design team, and where I want to go in my career,” said Michelle Lu, one of Ayoub’s mentees. Lu will graduate in May 2018 and work in industry.
Ayoub will graduate with her doctoral degree in May 2018. She will attend Dell Medical School at the end of June 2018.
