Title: Master's student in Business Analytics
Employer: University of Illinois at Chicago; AmeriCorps
Previous Role: Field Coordinator – MAPSCorps; Saga Education teacher

Gaby enjoys helping others by communicating and distilling complex ideas. She has done this through leadership positions, as a teacher for Saga Education, by tutoring and mentoring students from marginalized communities, and most currently she is learning how to help non-profit organizations utilize large-scale data to have a larger impact on the community.

Gaby graduated with her BS in Integrative Biology in 2019. During undergrad she was active in volunteer, mentor, and leadership positions such as a LAS 101 section leader and the Vice President of Minorities in Health Sciences. After graduating she taught Algebra and Geometry to high school freshmen through Saga Education, which is an organization under AmeriCorps. As a Saga Education fellow she was responsible for mentoring and tutoring high school students in marginalized communities. A large part of her work consisted of bonding with my students and encouraging them to do better. She enjoyed the mentorship and helping the students improve more than the content, so her next position focused on how to help her community. She worked as a Field Coordinator for MAPSCorps, surveying neighborhoods to figure out why employment was so low. Her job was to gather data but then they didn’t know what to do with it. She decided to go to grad school to learn more about business analytics to help non-profit better utilize the data they collect to make a larger impact on their community.

in her Master's program in Business Analytics Gaby is a TA for IDS 200 (Intro to Management Information Systems) at UIC. This position involves leading three different lab sections where she teaches students how to utilize Excel and MS Access to organize and analyze data. Some of my other duties also include: resolving student issues, grading, and keeping track of attendance.

Gaby also worked for MAPSCorps part time throughout the school year on an after school program for high school students. Here she taught them how to use R-studio to analyze community data and then they each did their own research project on how the economic wellness of the community affects people's overall health.

“Personally, my IB degree has given me the ability to think more critically about the world around me. I'm more inclined to research topics I'm unaware about and educate myself on the subject matter. Professionally, my IB degree has given me a lot more confidence than I had before. After completing such a challenging STEM degree I am positive that I can excel at any project that comes my way.”

If you also want to make an impact on your community, are interested in teaching or mentoring after undergrad, or enjoy the analytical thinking components of your IB degree Gaby would be a great person to talk with. Contact Christina Swanson at alumnimentor@sib.illinois.edu if you would like to connect with Gaby. You can also contact her directly at murillogabriela24@gmail.com or through LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/gabriela-murillo-90aba4159.