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Summer programs empower incoming students to take full advantage of Stanford Engineering’s academic opportunities

Led by the Equity and Inclusion Initiatives (EII) team, these programs support students at every stage of their academic journey in building confidence and community.
Students gathered in front of a poster at a poster session.
Summer programs offer participants access to research labs and application workshops, and a chance to connect with peers and faculty. | Katie Brown

In the fall of 2018, Monica Tavassoli became the first person from her high school to gain acceptance to Stanford. Over a year later, before starting her first year at Stanford, she completed the Stanford Summer Engineering Academy (SSEA), becoming one of roughly 1,200 students who have participated in the program since its inauguration in 1999. 

“If you were to just throw me into my first year at Stanford without SSEA, I would have struggled so much more,” said Tavassoli. “Stanford is a big place and SSEA really smooths out the transition for you.”

SSEA celebrated its 25th anniversary last May and is the School of Engineering’s longest-running program designed to support first-year students as they acclimate to life at Stanford. After a quarter-century in the School of Engineering, the program will be replaced next year, along with other academic-centered pre-orientation programs, including the Leland Scholars Program, the THRIVE program, and the online SOAR program. These programs will be merged into a new program under the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (VPUE). This change will combine forces in service of more transparent pathways for incoming students and greater efficiency, ultimately extending the impact to even more students throughout the university. 

In addition to this program for incoming students, Stanford Engineering’s Equity and Inclusion Initiatives (EII) team provides two additional summer programs: The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program helps prospective graduate students learn more about what graduate school entails, while the Summer First program onboards incoming PhD students. Both programs were established in 2018.

These tailored programs were designed with first-generation, low-income (FLI) students in mind. This year those students made up 100% of Summer First students, 80% of the SSEA cohort, and 65% of SURF participants. 

“As a SSEA participant, coming in and meeting other first-generation, low-income students from across the country, I was like – I see myself in you, I can relate to you, and I understand you. We can navigate this together,” said Tavassoli, who joined the SSEA leadership staff as a Grad Fellow this summer and is a current coterminal master’s student studying sustainability. 

Representation plays a crucial role in the success and retention of STEM students as they form communities and develop their identities. “When we think about identity – especially scientific identity – we know when students can see themselves being scientists they’re more likely to be successful,” said Jamillah McDaniel, EII’s senior director. 

McDaniel is part of the broader student affairs team in Engineering, overseen by Thomas Kenny. Kenny has served as senior associate dean for education and student affairs since 2015 and has taught mechanical engineering at Stanford for 30 years. 

“In engineering, our job is to try to solve problems in the world. Having diverse teams working on those problems leads to solutions that are applicable to larger populations,” said Kenny. “Seeing a student who might not have believed that they belong in a place like Stanford defend a thesis or get their diploma is always rewarding.” 

As an alum of SSEA, Tavassoli credits the program with connecting her to the information she needed to prepare a competitive graduate school application, study abroad at Oxford as an undergraduate, and secure housing for herself during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns.

“They’re my forever family,” said Tavassoli. “It’s a very full-circle moment to help cultivate that same sense of community for this year’s students as a Grad Fellow.” 

Community-building 

The sense of community that blossoms out of the SSEA program continues to shape the legacy of Will Tarpeh, assistant professor of chemical engineering. As a 2008 SSEA alum, Tarpeh echoed the importance of SSEA in helping him develop the confidence and camaraderie he needed to succeed. 

“The cohort-building is invaluable. Our EII staff manages that aspect of community so well,” said Tarpeh. “SSEA lowered my estimation of the difference between my potential and my goals.” 

SSEA gives incoming students with an interest in engineering exposure to different career trajectories through math labs, scientific lectures, and field excursions on and off campus. SSEA students live on campus for a month before school starts to begin interacting with faculty leaders and advisors while building an invaluable network of high-achieving peers they can turn to beyond their undergraduate careers. 

“I think sometimes in academia, we focus on the skills we develop in students, but the communities that are fostered and the bonds they create also help students achieve success,” said McDaniel. 

Much of the success of these programs hinges on the work of three EII associate directors – Gaby Velázquez, Karolina Reyes, and Luz M. Jiménez Ruvalcaba – who were all first-generation college students themselves. The trio manages the quality and consistency of programming and community-building while providing direct support to students during their respective programs. 

“Our associate directors make it possible for us to have such a strong, positive impact,” said McDaniel. “It’s really important work because social capital – especially for first-gen and marginalized communities at a place like Stanford – is so important to ensuring they have equal access to spaces and opportunities they might not otherwise have access to.”

Tarpeh prioritizes his involvement in EII’s programs because of the transparency and intentionality the staff infuses into their programming. He has spoken to each incoming SSEA cohort and hosted students in his lab from both summer research programs – SURF and Summer First – every year since becoming a full-time faculty member in 2018. 

“It’s a unique place where I can really make an impact because of the role-modeling effect of me having been here as a student,” said Tarpeh, who was also a low-income student. “It’s so hard to be something that you don’t know exists, or to imagine something that you don’t know as an option.”

The high-impact achievements of programs like SSEA will continue to ground and inform the new university pre-orientation program in fostering community and addressing the needs of FLI students and others who arrive at Stanford with differential preparation, so they are prepared to take full advantage of the academic opportunities Stanford has to offer.

Professor Tarpeh addresses a small group of students sitting at desks in a classroom.
Will Tarpeh talks with the 2024 SSEA cohort about how being an SSEA alum helped put him on a career path that led him back to Stanford as a professor. | Katie Brown

Lasting impact

Kevin Murillo spent back-to-back summers in the SURF and Summer First programs. These experiences helped him solidify his plans to pursue a PhD in aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford Engineering. 

SURF is a fully funded residential program that brings undergraduate students from outside Stanford to campus to conduct immersive summer research. SURF participants gain the research experience necessary to stand out on graduate school applications while being introduced to different PhD pathways. 

“Prior to doing SURF, I honestly wasn’t sure I even wanted to do grad school,” said Murillo, who now plans to become a research professor leading mentorship programs for first-generation and low-income students.

“SURF allowed me to establish myself as a researcher and helped me to be able to see myself at a place like Stanford,” said Murillo. “I went from being very shy and timid in this environment to all of a sudden feeling like I belong here – like this is just as much my space as it is yours.” 

A year after his participation in SURF, in 2024 Murillo graduated from EII’s Summer First program, which brings incoming PhD students to campus a quarter early to get a head start on research rotations. Summer First Fellows engage in developmental workshops tailored toward important degree aspects, including qualifying exams, and are paired with graduate student mentors to promote networking and personal development opportunities while receiving a stipend and free housing in addition to having a specified number of credits from their PhD program covered. 

“As much as I want to do research, at the end of the day what I need to do quality research is to have a strong support network,” said Murillo. “These programs are more than students just doing research together.”

Last August, Murillo helped celebrate the accomplishments of SURF’s newest research cohort during EII’s annual poster session. Cassidy Little was one of 31 SURF scholars representing seven countries who presented their research to dozens of EII alums, Stanford faculty, and students. 

Following the poster session, many SURF students took the stage to express their gratitude for the bonds they formed and progress they made as researchers over the summer. Looking out at a sea of teary-eyed colleagues, Little realized everyone was just as moved as she was.

Five students gather to view a scientific research poster.
Cassidy Little answers questions about the research she conducted in Alison Marsden’s Cardiovascular Biomechanics Computation Lab during the 2024 SURF poster session. | Katie Brown 

“A lot of what this program did is make us believe in ourselves while giving us a space to build connections, meet people, and actually do the research that’s important,” she said. “We all lift each other up.”

Little didn’t bet on Stanford being one of her top graduate school prospects before joining this year’s SURF cohort, but after sitting in on PhD-level lab meetings in the Marsden Lab, meeting face-to-face with potential PhD advisors, and touring potential graduate school labs on campus, she feels prepared to take on graduate school at the university of her choice. 

“I’ve learned a lot from everyone at SURF,” said Little. “I feel like I can go so many different places now and not just because Stanford’s on my resume – mostly because I know how to approach things.” 

Visit the SURF program page and the Summer First program page for more information about these programs. Visit the Leveling the Learning Landscape (L3) page to learn more about the new pre-orientation program for incoming first-year undergraduates.