Sophie Jean Walton

I believe that when people are supported and part of a good community, great science follows. To that end, I have engaged in mentorship, community building, and teaching throughout my time at Stanford.

For much of my PhD, I have been involved with BioBuds at Stanford. In particular I served as a co-faciliator for the program from 2023-2025. As a co-faciliator, I worked with a team of graduate instructors to provide mentorship and training on the "hidden curriculum" of science and ran a 10 week research internship for undergraduates. We also provided mentorship and teaching training to postdocs and graduate students. I also previously participated in the program as a research mentor and a guest lecturer in 2023. As a research mentor, I mentored a freshman during her first research experience, and I helped her develop computational and data analaysis skills.

I was a mentor for the Stanford FAST program during my first two years of graduate school, where Stanford graduate students guided local high school students on self-driven research projects.

I have also provided service for the Biophysics graduate program. I was one of the Social Chairs, and I helped start the Stanford SBiophysics twitter account.