Student Enrichment Office

Graduate students supported by SFSU’s Student Enrichment Opportunities office complete Ph.D. programs, regardless of undergrad institution or GPA

When San Francisco State University alumna Muryam Gourdet (M.S., ’16) wanted to quit her Ph.D. program, she received a message from one of her former mentors in the SFSU Student Enrichment Opportunities (SEO) program: “Don’t quit. Come talk to me now.” 

She came back to campus to talk to SFSU Professor Teaster Baird, who was the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department Chair at the time and is now a College of Science & Engineering (CoSE) Associate Dean. Other SFSU mentors reached out to Gourdet — in person and by phone and email. Some even contacted faculty and program managers at Gourdet’s Ph.D. institution, University of California San Francisco (UCSF), to help in situations where she felt powerless. 

“It was full force,” she said.

Gourdet successfully finished her Ph.D. at UCSF. She also earned a mentorship award there — UCSF faculty started asking her for mentorship advice — and accomplished several other achievements along the way. After her Ph.D., she worked in industry for a few years.

It’s a story heard time and time again in SFSU’s SEO community.

“Once SEO, always SEO,” said SEO Director Megumi Fuse, a professor in the Department of Biology. 

Since the early 1990s, SEO has housed training grants for undergraduate and graduate students in CoSE, providing research opportunities, stipends, full tuition, career development opportunities, graduate application guidance and community. Although it mostly serves students in Biology and Biochemistry and Chemistry, SEO has impacted nearly all majors in the college at one point. 

In a new PLOS One paper, Fuse and collaborators at SFSU and California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) demonstrate that this system leads to master’s students enrolling in and successfully completing prestigious Ph.D. programs, regardless of undergraduate GPA. It supports the larger movement for a more holistic assessment of student success. 

SEO students wearing merch from their Ph.D. institutions

GPA isn’t everything

“We have this amazing pool of students that are hidden,” said Fuse. “Things like their GPA and need to work mask their ability to be successful. Once we give them money and mentorship, we see their true abilities.”

SEO supported over 500 students between 1992 and 2019. Eighty-nine percent of the 330 SFSU master’s students who applied to Ph.D. programs were accepted. Fuse's collaborators at CSULA’s MORE (More Opportunity in Research) office reported a similar pattern. Students enrolled in top research institutions such as UC Davis, UC Berkeley, University of Washington, UCSF, Harvard, Stanford and more. 

Network with insider insight

“I applied to San Francisco State and San José State. I basically made my decision based on the SEO support I was going to get,” said Dennis Tabuena (M.S., ’16), now a postdoctoral fellow at the Gladstone Institute. “I still think my favorite experience in research was the two years I spent at SFSU. It was probably the most productive years in my whole research career.”

Though Tabuena didn’t have the best grades as a UC Merced undergrad and only did research in his last year, he was able to transition to a biotech job. The problem was that he quickly discovered a career ceiling that required a Ph.D. to break. After a few unsuccessful Ph.D. application cycles, he decided to pursue a master’s degree as a stepping stone. 

SEO’s extended network was invaluable to Tabuena’s success earning a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Washington, Seattle. While SEO provided coaching, practice interviews and writing support, the office also brought university recruiters to talk about programs and provide a peek behind the admissions process. 

“I’ve been able to get big-name universities to come to SF State on their dime. They fly recruiters in; they pay for the hotels, the airfare,” Fuse explained. “UCSF, Stanford, Harvard — they come to SFSU to recruit. They realize that SFSU is a goldmine for students.”

Tabuena recalls some recruiters would even provide feedback on personal statements and answer questions via email. They provided insight that could only be provided by someone on admissions committees, something that was lacking in his industry experiences. 

SEO’s students and alumni themselves are critical to the health of the SEO ecosystem. As Gourdet prepared to leave industry, SEO connected her with alumni who had similar career experiences and trajectory. She has been coming back to SFSU two or three times a year for on-campus events.

SEO also provides undergrads with research experience. The number of undergraduate and graduate SEO alumni is in the hundreds. Alumni often stay connected with SFSU and participate in panels and other events with current students and faculty. 

The lasting SEO effect

“It’s so many layers of mentorship that hopefully [students] don’t fall through the cracks,” Fuse said. She and her collaborators built the SEO infrastructure with longevity and a culture shift in mind. “Students also learn to mentor the next generation. I think one thing you’ll find with low-income minority students is that they want to give back to their community.”

SEO scholars like Juan Mendoza (B.S., '03) have gone on to become professors carrying on the tradition of the high-caliber science and intentional mentorship at prestigious universities. 

Tabuena wants to stay in academia. As an SFSU student, he used to mentor community college summer interns, so he’s continuing to do this as a postdoctoral fellow at the Gladstone, a research institution affiliated with UCSF.

“We’re giving people that opportunity to get into the lab. These people are not in a position where [research experience is] readily available to them,” he explained. “It’s very important for me to keep doing that now that I’m on the inside.”

Thanks to her campus visits, Gourdet just started her dream position as program manager for SFSU Assistant Professor Archana Anand’s Phage Pathways program. The Department of Energy-funded program with two national labs is creating a pipeline to train students for the renewable energy workforce. 

“I tell students that the most important thing is the network you build, not the things you learn. You can learn material from anywhere; you can Google a lot,” Gourdet said. “But knowing the right people to guide your next steps is critical.”

Learn more about the Student Enrichment Opportunities (SEO) program at SFSU.

The Bridges to Doctorate program celebrates its 30th anniversary and its impact on University graduate students and the science community

In 1992, Michelle Alegria-Hartman (M.S., ’93) was a master’s student at San Francisco State University. She recalls frequently walking into the office of her thesis advisor, Biology Professor Frank Bayliss, to talk about science and her career. During one of these many conversations, Bayliss invited Alegria-Hartman to be the first student in what is known today at the University as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Bridges to Doctorate program.

Now the program is celebrating its 30th anniversary — with instructors and students reflecting on the program’s impact. The program was recently awarded another $5 million from the NIH to continue for another five years.

“The purpose of the program is to support underrepresented minorities in the sciences, primarily biology and chemistry, but we’ve had students from physics, math and computer science as well,” said Bayliss, who served as director of the program for more than 26 years before retiring in 2018.

Bridges is one of several programs that fall under the College of Science & Engineering’s Student Enrichment Opportunities (SEO) office. In the 1980s, underrepresented minorities comprised less than 4% of the Biology master’s students at SF State. The introduction of Bridges and other programs has raised that percentage to 33.5% in the last decade and almost doubled the number of Asian master’s students. Analysis of 491 master’s students supported by SEO programs between 1992 and 2019 showed that more than half went on to complete a doctoral program (Ph.D. or MD) after SF State regardless of their undergraduate grade point average. That pattern of success represents what was observed in individual programs like Bridges, say Bayliss and current Bridges and SEO Director Megumi Fuse.

Bridges alums have entered different sectors of science, with many working in industry as researchers or executives, while others have gone into academia, education, law and more.

Financial incentives are important

“The program [Bridges] gives them some minimal funding but enough so [students] can focus on their studies,” Bayliss explained. Current students receive a stipend over $25,000 for the year and have 60% of tuition covered. They also have access to research opportunities and support for conferences, career development and Ph.D. preparation. That’s critical. While Ph.D. science students may receive a yearly stipend, there are far fewer opportunities for such funding for master’s students.

“If you look at women and minorities, they’re not going to be coming from families that can just support them to get a master’s degree or Ph.D.,” explained Alegria-Hartman, who now works in private industry. “You have to have financial incentives.”

As a graduate student, Alegria-Hartman also held a separate research job at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Bayliss helped her coordinate her research at Livermore so it could do double duty as her master’s research project, a move that helped her balance her school workload and financial needs. After SF State, she completed her Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis.

Twenty years later, LeRoy Robinson Jr. (M.S., ’12) partly came to SF State because he knew about Bridges and other support for master’s students.

“SF State was also one of the few institutions for master’s students where they are also offering some kind of financial support so I wouldn’t necessarily have to go broke to do my master’s,” Robinson said. He did his master’s thesis research with faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, and went on to pursue a Ph.D. at New York University.

Mentees to mentors

“It’s a part of my responsibility to give back to the community,” Alegria-Hartman said. “I literally always say this: I wouldn’t be where I am today if it hadn’t been for a lot of people stepping forward and becoming my mentor.  I believe mentors are key for students choosing a scientific career and obtaining their career goals.”

They also treated her like a colleague: SF State faculty would frequently share with her their recent scientific findings or interesting research papers. It felt like they were inviting her into the fold of being a researcher, which had a huge impact on Alegria-Hartman as a young scientist. They took the time to understand her goals and helped her navigate academia, grants, applications and personal decisions. Robinson says he had a similar experience.

“SF State was the only place, especially in the sciences, where I didn’t feel like the sole person of color that was in the room in conversations,” he said, noting that diversity and representation are important in his own career choices. In addition to being an SF State adjunct faculty member and lecturer, he is an associate medical director at a medical strategy agency (Prohealth) and a diversity, equity and inclusion associate editor for the journal “Women’s Health.”

Given SF State’s demographics, Alegria-Hartman thinks the University’s and Bridges’ impact is important for the health of the science field. The authentic care and education at SF State is key to giving a more diverse group of budding scientists the opportunity to blossom.

“It’s getting people in the pipeline. … Getting as many people as you can involved in the beginning of a scientist’s career and seeing if they really like science or not,” she said. “I think that really, really helps.”

Learn more about NIH Bridges to Doctorate and other similar programs offered by the Student Enrichment Opportunities office.