Professional Development

Graduate Student Mentoring Circles

The Graduate Student Mentoring Circles is an initiative created by Career Advising and Professional Development (CAPD) and the Office of Graduate Education (OGE). The Mentoring Circles connect current graduate students with alumni who provide relevant perspectives on pathways to academic and industry careers.

Through this month-long program, students will virtually connect with graduate alumni and engage in weekly conversations focused on navigating work environments. In this mentoring circle format, students will have access and receive input from mentors in various career paths and hear about their peers’ experiences. The mentoring circles meet online via zoom for three 1-hour group sessions. After the group sessions, in the fourth week, students will have the opportunity to have 15 minute individual conversations with mentors.

Dates

Xio Alvarez, MArch & MCP '21

Tuesdays, April 7th, 14th, 21st

7 - 8 pm 

Zoom link provided after registration

Rubez Chong, MAS SM '20 & David Hill, MAS PhD '18

Fridays, April 10th, 17th, 24th 

3 - 4 pm 

Zoom link provided after registration

Nse Esema, MCP '12 & Tiffany Ferguson, MCP '18

Fridays, April 10th, 17th, 24th 

3 - 4 pm 

Zoom link provided after registration

Weekly Themes

Week 1: Career Journey

Week 2: Effective and Strategic Communication

Week 3: Building Relationships that Matter

Week 4: 1-1 Mentoring

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Mentor Bios

Xio Alvarez, MArch & MCP ‘21 

Xio Alvarez is a designer at LMN Architects in downtown Seattle, where she works on projects that bridge between planning and architecture. In addition to project work, she co-leads the firm’s resilience research group. She is interested in leveraging quantitative data about climate, geography, and the built environment with qualitative experiences and stories of neighborhoods and places to tell more complicated and nuanced stories about what it means to adapt to change. 

Previously, Xio worked on heat and flood resilience projects with social justice communities in the Boston area, looking at ways that the design process for plans and projects can build coalitions between communities of color, environmental advocates, and government stakeholders. She has a bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies as well as a Master of Architecture and a Master in City Planning. 

Rubez Chong, MAS SM ‘20

Rubez is a Director of Product & Design at McKinsey & Company where she partners with companies to build and scale AI-powered products from 0 to 1. She has spent the past 9+ years leading cross-functional teams across product, design, engineering, and business. Rubez holds a Master of Science from the Program in Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab.

David Hill, MAS PhD ‘18

David is the Director of the Performance Innovation Lab at Los Angeles Dodgers. His research interests lie in the use of technology to measure and understand the physics of sports and the science that governs athlete performance.

Prior to joining the Dodgers, David completed a PhD in the MIT Media Lab's Biomechatronics Group where he studied human gait and aided in the design of technology that sought to restore lost abilities to persons living with conditions that alter mobility. David holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Morehouse College.

Nse Esema, MCP ‘12

Nse leads a team focused on fostering the growth of climate related industries in NYC through inclusive, equitable economic development. EDC provides catalytic support, including real estate, financial incentives, business development, innovation and workforce programs, to green economy companies, thereby enabling commercialization and deployment at scale of a range of climate technologies.

Prior to NYCEDC, Nse worked with city governments in Africa and North America in developing and implementing multi-stakeholder resilience building strategies. Nse earned a Master in City Planning degree from MIT and is a proud alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania. Nse lives in the Bronx with her husband and two children.

Tiffany Ferguson, MCP ‘18

Trained as a dancer, anthropologist and city planner, Tiffany is keenly interested in issues of placemaking and economic opportunity; namely, how work and time spent not working enable people to lead thriving lives of aspiration and possibility. As Managing Director and Principal Consultant at DevelopWell, she partners with organizations on the front lines of social movements, policy advocacy, grant making, and labor to ensure mission driven orgs are not only impactful in the world, but are great places to work for folks fighting for a more just and democratic society.

Tiffany holds a Master in City Planning from MIT, a sustainability certificate from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and bachelors degrees in dance and urban cultural anthropology from CUNY Hunter College.

Networking Like a Researcher

ALEXIS BOYER
Assistant Director of Graduate Career Services, MIT CAPD

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 2026
4–5:30pm, 7-338 Stella (dinner provided at end)

Participants will learn to approach networking like a researcher by conducting "career research" through informational interviews and strategic mapping of their existing connections.

The session provides practical strategies for making meaningful connections, including low-stakes social media engagement and personalized LinkedIn introduction frameworks. By identifying and cultivating a diverse network of mentors, sponsors, and peers, you can gain insider advice and increase your visibility in your chosen field.

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Design Your Career

Svafa Grönfeldt
PhD Professor of the Practice, MIT MAD & Faculty Director, MITdesignX

Monday, March 2, 2026
12–1pm, 9-451 (lunch provided)

Design Your Career is a reflective, action-based session that reframes professional development as a design process. Through experimentation, prototyping, and storytelling, the session introduces proactive career path design. 

Participants will:

• Develop the ability to design their careers as evolving systems, not fixed paths.
• Gain agency and confidence in shaping their own professional identity.
• Learn to prototype possible futures through small experiments and projects.
• Build skills in opportunity creation, not just opportunity seeking.