Seventeen New Mexico women honored for inspiring young women to pursue STEM fields

Category: Front Page News Front Page News
Published: 20 August 2015 20 August 2015

A woman from Silver City was among the honorees €”Mary Jemin.

Albuquerque, NM- Aug. 4, 2015: Dubbed the New Mexico Women of STEM, 17 women from across the state were honored for their contributions in motivating young women to pursue education and careers in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). The room at the Pete Domenici Health Center of UNM was packed Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015, with 14 of the honorees, their guests, event organizers and VIPs in attendance. The reception took on a sunflower theme to symbolize the spreading of seeds to a younger generation of female STEM professionals. Each honoree received an NM Women of STEM poster featuring each with a favorite inspirational quote, an award letter, and they also took part in a photo shoot for a 16-month calendar that will feature these 'STEM Sunflowers.'

The honorees come from a variety of organizations across the state. They include Diana E. Northup, Ph.D., University of New Mexico; Cristina Montoya, M.S., Los Alamos National Lab; Mia Kalish, Ph.D., New Mexico State University; Nina Lanza, Ph.D., Los Alamos National lab; Phyllis Baca, M.S., Santa Fe Community College; Rebecca Galves, M.S. NMSU; Turtle Haste, M.S., Albuquerque Public Schools; Teri Roberts, B.S., LANL; Mary Jemin, B.S., Expanding Your Horizons Conferences; Jill Wick, M.S., NM Department of Game and Fish; Lorie Liebrock, Ph.D., New Mexico Tech; Jeri Timlin, Ph.D., Sandia National Labs; Janeen Anderson, B.S., Acaji; Heather Yazzie-Kinlacheeny, B.A., Navajo Technical University, Patty Lopez, Ph.D., Intel; Diane Oyen, Ph.D., LANL; and Jill Hruby, M.S. Sandia National Labs.

The calendars will be distributed to students at schools throughout New Mexico around the beginning of the school year and will serve a dual purpose, with each feature page including the women's accomplishments and biography that can also be used as a tear-off promotional poster to encourage young women to make STEM choices for their own education. The cover will feature Jill Hruby, who was recently appointed manager of Sandia National Labs—the first woman to hold the position.

The Supercomputing Challenge is one of the main sponsors of the calendar and recently wrapped up its 25th anniversary year of introducing middle and high school students across New Mexico to the combined power of supercomputers, modeling and problem solving. The calendar was the brainchild of Challenge Program Manager Patty Meyer, who said: "The calendar will be a beautiful tribute to our diverse group of New Mexico women working in STEM fields of expertise. It will show all young women, regarless of race of background that they CAN succeed in STEM careers, too."

Along with private donations, other sponsors of the calendar insluce the Albert I. Pierre Foundation, UNM STEM-H Center and the NM Public Education Department.

About the NM Supercomputer Challenge—founded in 1990, the challenge is a non-profit educational organization that sponsors an annual computational science competition for middle and high school students across New Mexico. For more information, visit http://supercomputingchallenge.org 

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