Director, STEM Graduate and Postdoctoral Career Development
Amy Hark, Ph.D.
The Director of STEM Graduate Career Development, Dr. Amy Hark oversees myCHOICE programming and develops and administers externships and treks.
Before the merger of UChicagoGRAD and myCHOICE, Amy played a key role in helping the myCHOICE program develop seminars and mini-courses, including the “Understanding the Landscape of Business Careers” course in Winter 2024. Since joining UChicagoGRAD in 2022, Amy has supported STEM PhD students and postdocs via professional development programming and one-on-one advising services. Prior to joining UChicago, Amy worked as a postdoctoral researcher in a neuroscience lab that investigated decision-making. Amy received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Neuroscience, where she studied sex differences in learning and memory.
Associate Director, myCHOICE at UChicagoGRAD
Elahe Ganji, Ph.D.
The myCHOICE Associate Director, Dr. Elahe Ganji, leads the development and administration of exploratory and educational myCHOICE programming (i.e., seminars and mini-courses).
Elahe leads the bi-weekly “What Can I Do with My PhD?” seminar series and works with Amy to design and run myCHOICE mini-courses. Since joining myCHOICE in 2023, she has played a key role in sustaining the program’s offerings, engaging students, and maintaining its mission during the merger with UChicagoGRAD. She earned her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Delaware and was a Beckman Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois. Throughout her academic career, Elahe has advanced STEM education and workforce development through leadership roles in national and local organizations, including Women in Engineering, the Perry Initiative, and the University of Illinois 21st Century Scientists Working Group.
myCHOICE Communications Intern
Tianyi Hu
As the Communications Intern on the myCHOICE team, Tilly supports career development programming for STEM PhD students and postdocs through strategic communication and design. Tianyi contributes to the myCHOICE initiative by managing digital content across channels, including maintaining the program website, creating visual materials for events, and drafting newsletters to expand outreach. With a background in marketing and operations from prior internships at Cartier and UNISKIN, Tianyi brings strong cross-cultural communication and project management skills to the team. Currently pursuing her Master’s in Applied Data Science at the University of Chicago, Tianyi is passionate about combining data, design, and storytelling to build accessible, trainee-centered resources that highlight diverse career pathways in academia, industry, nonprofits, and government.