She was assigned to be my graduate student mentor when I started the process of writing my Master’s and has far exceeded any hopes that I had entering the relationship.

She is constantly forwarding on paper competitions, research opportunities, and research articles that she comes across that are particularly relevant to my area of interest.

Less academically, Shiri has made herself available on numerous occasions to meet for coffee or lunch in order to discuss personal or less substantive academic issues I have faced. She has consistently improved my experience at IU by either simply providing a sympathetic ear or offering whatever experience she has regarding the issue with which I am faced.

Shiri has been invaluably helpful – even more now than a year ago when she was assigned to be a semester long mentor. Shiri has gone out of her way to meet with me with regards to statistical analyses, comments from professors, giving her own comments, offering advice on what directions to go, advising possible models and interpretations, and reassuring me that everything would work out.

As an upper level student, she doesn’t have to come into campus, but she is there most days and many weekends as well. When she’s in the computer lab, she is always available for questions, advice, or concerns about nearly anything – statistics, classes, professors, life. She is always willing to stop her own work in order to go to someone else’s computer and look at a statistical test or table, answer a question, proofread something, or just to talk about something that has been bothering someone. I have seen her do this for anyone in the computer lab who’s asked anything of her, not just for me personally.

She’s also quick to notice when someone seems particularly upset or stressed out about anything and is more than willing to talk to that person, play some music that often helps, or tell a joke or funny story as a means of de‐stressing whomever that person may be.

Shiri has spent countless hours meeting us, reading our drafts, reviewing our presentations, fixing our Stata glitches, and listening to our angst during late night phone calls.

For many of us, she is the person you go to when the computer crashes, the panic starts to set in, and you need to call someone you trust, and who won’t make fun of you when your foot is on the cord. Shiri has helped us patiently, without pretention and irritability, throughout all of our blunders, and our successes throughout the past year.

In addition to providing comments and help on my own projects, Shiri also asked me to work with her on a research project that she had in mind that intersected with my research interests.

I am sure that 30 years from now I will still be sending drafts of papers to Shiri for comments. I feel extremely privileged to have developed the relationship that we have and I am certain that it has considerably enhanced the quality of my work and my overall experience in graduate school thus far.