Soliz has mentored close to forty master’s and undergraduate students and three doctoral students. A Latina quantitative researcher, Soliz has had to overcome challenges and develop strategies for navigating the academy on her own. With this grant, she will pursue three learning goals to develop her capacity to support students’ intersectional identities. First, she will learn to support mentees through the relational aspects of being a researcher, such as collaborating and networking. Second, she will become more comfortable considering and supporting junior scholars of color and of multiple intersecting identities. Finally, Soliz will improve her skills in giving high-quality verbal and written feedback on mentees’ work. The award will support her mentee Hidahis Mesa, a third-year doctoral student whose research is aimed at expanding postsecondary opportunities for traditionally marginalized low-income and underrepresented students of color. Mesa identifies three goals for the mentoring grant: 1) to build self-confidence and develop better communication strategies for networking and presenting her academic work; 2) to improve her writing and productivity, with deliverables including a first-authored publication, as well as co-authored publications and grant proposals with Soliz and a completed dissertation proposal; and 3) to develop skills in mixed-methods research.
Soliz will use this award to expand her capacity to support students’ intersectional identities.
