Scholar Development Ambassadors
OURSD’s Scholar Development Ambassadors (SDAs) serve as liaisons between Carnegie Mellon students and OURSD, and represent the office in a number of capacities across campus. SDAs have demonstrated interest and experience in research and/or fellowships applications, as well as a desire to assist their fellow students in securing research and scholarship opportunities.
SDAs are alumni of various OURSD research programs who are federal work-study funded to continue active participation in research and to serve the campus community in a variety of ways, including:
- Serving on undergraduate research and fellowships panels in classes, student organization meetings, events, on-campus presentations, and Zoom webinars
- Representing and recruiting for OURSD programming at tabling events
- Contributing to the development of social media content and other promotional materials
- Developing and carrying out supplemental outreach projects based on individual interests to increase visibility of research and scholarship opportunities through OURSD
Student organizations interested in hosting ambassador presentations on undergraduate research or scholarship opportunities should contact OURSD-general@andrew.cmu.edu for more information.
Meet Our 2026-2027 Ambassadors!
Maggie Chen
Junior, Computer Science
SURF 2025
- Research area: My research as a part of the Data Interaction Group under Katelyn Morrison focused on developing explainable AI to enhance education in the radiology field. My goals in my research projects are to understand what makes technologies intuitive across specific user groups.
- Other interests: Outside of research, I love to try all the yummy eats around Pittsburgh and stay active. I’ve been hiking around over 18 national parks in the US!
Tiffany Darmawan
Senior, Mathematical Sciences
HURAY 2025–2026
- Research area: My research investigates the other group effect in children and the measures that researches use to research racial bias.
- Other interests: Outside of academics, I love cooking, journalling, and playing video games with my friends!
Sofia Kozlova
Junior, Chemical Engineering & Biomedical Engineering
SURF 2026 & SURG 2026
- Research area: The main goal of my research is to optimize algal species selection and algae-to-muscle cell ratios in 3D skeletal muscle rings to improve their performance in co-culture. I also evaluate the contractile force generated by the muscle tissue to assess its potential for future applications in biohybrid robotics. In parallel, I am developing and optimizing a bioreactor system for algal cultivation and preparation prior to co-culture.
- Other interests: Outside of research, I serve on the boards of AIChE and ChemE Cube. In my free time, I enjoy reading, hiking, running, playing the piano, and volunteering as a grade school tutor.
Emmet McEvilley
Junior, Mechanical Engineering
SURA 2026
- Research area: Emmet works in the MetaMobility Lab, where he focuses on the mechanical design of exoskeletons that aim to improve gait stability in clinical populations. He is currently working to increase the maximum torque of an ankle exoskeleton.
- Other interests: Outside of research, he enjoys playing tennis on the club team, going for runs, and graphic design.
Lynn Zhang
Senior, Cognitive Computation
HURAY 2025–2026
- Research area: Lynn Zhang is a senior in Cognitive Computation doing privacy incentives research under Professor Sarah Scheffler and Professor Doron Cohen. This research looks at the intersection of behavioral economics and privacy including phenomena prominent in both fields such as the privacy paradox and the description-experience gap. They aim to find out if privacy behaviors change in the presence of feedback over time.
- Other interests: Outside of research, Lynn enjoys reading books and ballroom dancing. Lynn also plays cello for the AUO symphony and works on ARCC's annual Spring Theater.