Meet the 2017-2018 Rice Graduate Student Association officers

The new Graduate Student Association (GSA) officers who were elected in the spring participated in a Q&A to help the Rice community get better acquainted with them. Their responses appear below.  

Sydney Gibson

Name: Sydney Gibson.
Office: President.
Year: Fifth-year Ph.D. student.
Area of study: Bioengineering.
Hometown: Bowie, Md.
Why I came to Rice: Aside from Valhalla, the Rice graduate community was like nothing I had ever seen. Our students are very involved on campus and they’re very social! The friendly atmosphere had me sold. The Rice graduate community is strong and connected, something that you do not find often in other graduate schools.
Why I joined GSA: Working in a small lab can isolate you from others, and there are so many opportunities to grow as a scientist outside the lab. Not only does the GSA provide me professional development and leadership development, but it’s also a way to connect with other students. GSA has given me not only a great network of friends, but it also helps me in my career goals. I can’t ask for a better combination.

Charlotte Flatebo

Name: Charlotte Flatebo.
Office: Vice president of administration.
Year: Third-year Ph.D. student.
Area of study: Applied physics.
Hometown: Ridgecrest, Calif.
Why I came to Rice: The graduate student community at Rice is extremely welcoming, and I felt like a part of Rice even before I decided to come here.
Why I joined GSA: I think that focusing on the well-being of students, especially in graduate school, is extremely important. Being a part of GSA allows me to help provide resources that graduate students need as well as opportunities for growth in both the social and professional aspects of their lives.

Josh Hill

Name: Josh Hill.
Office: Vice president of student development.
Year: Fourth-year Ph.D. student.
Area of study: Applied physics – physics and astronomy.
Hometown: Yorktown, Va.
Why I came to Rice: The university’s excellent atomic physics program.
Why I joined GSA: To meet people and build leadership skills.

John Gawedzinski

Name: John Gawedzinski.
Office: Vice president of community engagement.
Year: Third-year graduate student.
Area of study: Bioengineering.
Hometown: Dallas.
Why I came to Rice: While I was doing my graduate recruitment tour, the students both seemed happy and engaged at both their research and their extracurricular activities. I knew I wanted to be part of such a vibrant group.
Why I joined GSA: The GSA does so much to go above and beyond just meeting our graduate students’ most basic needs. They make us feel welcome and part of a community. I wanted to do whatever I could to keep facilitating that and contributing to the wonderful environment we have.

Matt Lamb

Name: Matt Lamb.
Office: Vice president of finance.
Year: Third-year graduate student.
Area of study: Political science.
Hometown: Baytown, Texas.
Why I came to Rice: I came to Rice University because the American politics faculty in the department were pursuing research projects in which I was very interested. When I came for prospective students weekend, this was the department I gelled with the most and got an all-around good vibe from everyone in the department.
Why I joined GSA: I was looking to get more involved on campus. One of the things that has made my time here at Rice one of the most memorable experiences of my life is the sense of community on campus, and I wanted to contribute more to that.

Jason Guo

Name: Jason Guo.
Office: Vice president of student advocacy.
Year: Third-year Ph.D. student.
Area of study: Bioengineering.
Hometown: Minneapolis.
Why I came to Rice: Stellar research, amazing people and a tight-knit graduate community. Also, great barbecue.
Why I joined GSA: I wanted to advocate for improvements to the graduate student experience at Rice and develop my skills in organizational leadership.

Cat Majors

Name: Cat Majors
Office: Parliamentarian.
Area of study: Bioengineering.
Hometown: Franklin, Tenn.
Why I came to Rice: I knew the niche of my field that I wanted to work in when applying to graduate programs, and my adviser, Dr. Rebecca Richards-Kortum, is one of the leading innovators in the field of global health diagnostics. I wrote all of my applications as if I was writing a letter to her personally, and it appears to have worked. Coming to the BioE recruitment weekend only further sealed the deal when I saw that not only would I be able to participate in awesome research while at Rice, but graduate students here had a great work-life balance and a GSA and university/department administration that clearly supported them.
Why I joined GSA: Seeing the department GSA involvement in my recruitment weekend and how much those leaders helped me personally during my first year of graduate school are really what spurred me into involvement at Rice. My second year I served as the chair of the bioengineering GSA; that position gave me a platform to effect curriculum change for our department, as well as to plan the first annual Bioengineering Graduate Student Symposium, which has since grown into the BRC Innovation Symposium, featuring work from students and faculty across multiple departments and fields. That position also served as a springboard into additional graduate student service and leadership at a university level. I have had the privilege of serving as Valhalla’s manager; the internal vice president for the GSA, where I was able to closely work with department GSAs; the president of the GSA, where I worked with administration and the dean of graduate students to introduce new dining options for grads and begin a process of reviewing graduate student handbooks; and now as the parliamentarian of the GSA. Basically, I saw very early on that this university wouldn’t function the way it does without the work of graduate students stepping up into leadership. The roles those student leaders played were instrumental in recruiting me to come to Rice and in supporting me as I struggled through my first several years here. It’s only right to give something back when the GSA has given me so much.

For more information on the GSA, visit http://gsa.rice.edu/.