Biography

In her role as STEM Education Program Manager at Berkeley Lab, Dr. Laleh Coté develops, manages, and assesses the impact of internships, outreach events, and other activities in support of students and faculty. She hopes to inspire visitors and program participants to consider Berkeley Lab when they are applying to internships, jobs, and other opportunities over the course of their career. Her research interests include STEM education, teaching/mentoring undergraduate researchers, artificial intelligence (AI) tools for education, program evaluation, workforce development, and research team productivity.

As an undergraduate community college biology/pre-med student, Laleh completed her first internship at Berkeley Lab in 2007, through the Community College Internship (CCI) program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WDTS). She completed 2 more internships at Berkeley Lab, worked as a Research Assistant at Berkeley Lab, and then worked for about 1 year at UCSF Medical Center in the Department of Surgery. In 2011, she began working in STEM education at Berkeley Lab, and served as a Student Assistant, Internship Coordinator, and now Program Manager with the same team. In 2016, she went back to school, and obtained a masters in Microbiology and Ph.D. in Science & Mathematics Education from UC Berkeley. Now, with nearly two decades of experience in the UC system, she looks forward to serving this community as a CUCSA Delegate.

Outside of work, Laleh is passionate about music, art, storytelling, swapping Stephen King books with her husband, taking her dog to the dog park, and taking her son to get boba (conveniently located across the street from the dog park).