Ava Bindas ’17

You can’t become a better writer unless you write. Mac asked to write all the time in all the ways and showed me the value of getting comfortable with the discomfort of writing.

Ava Bindas ’17

I work for an interdisciplinary social science research group at USC called the Program on Global Aging, Health, and Policy, which serves as research-sharing and access hub. I wear three related hats. I do technical writing, making science accessible for a general audience. I’m a collaborative editor, offering writing assistance to the team, including brainstorming, refining grant proposals and white papers, and proofreading. And I do the communications work for the Center, managing newsletters and social media, facilitating webinars, and otherwise getting this research out to a wider audience.

My Honors project in the English department at Mac was a critical turning point for me. It lit the spark that became my desire to go to grad school, and it taught me so much about project management: how to get organized, meet goals over time, adapt when the timeline changes. How to ask good questions to get support. How to know what I don’t know. 

As the first in my family to go to college, I thought graduate school was somehow unreasonable, far-fetched. Undergrad was enough of a wilderness; getting a PhD in English felt like going to the moon. I talked to so many mentors—Mac professors, librarians, recent grads—trying to dissuade myself. But it only made me want to go to grad school more. In 2024, I got my PhD in nineteenth-century British literature from UC Davis. 

Because my current role didn’t exist before, I’ve been able to shape the job in meaningful ways. I realize that I thrive where I have the freedom to see a problem and propose a solution. I created the first style guide for all the publications the Center produces, for example. And I have filled my office with Victorian novels. When Economists who come to talk about policy reports puzzle over non-economic books in an office, I tell them George Eliot, one of my favorite Victorian writers, prepared me for this job more than I knew. Sometimes I read them “I grant you ample leave,” because that poem inquisitively explores scientific ways of knowing the human soul. I love having a job where I can have valuable relationships with colleagues and also be uniquely independent and even a force for good.

Last updated: October 2025