CNSI News

UCSB SACNAS Chapter Selected as National Chapter of the Year

The UCSB Student Chapter of SACNAS (the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science) has been selected as the National Chapter of the Year out of over thirty student chapters across the nation. The UCSB Chapter received a $1,000 gift from the National SACNAS Organization in recognition of its achievements. The active participation of UCSB faculty in many SACNAS activities, including ‘Lunch with a Scientist’ was cited as a major strength of the UCSB chapter.

In addition to achieving this national distinction, three UCSB undergraduate student participants were recognized with research awards at the recent SACNAS Conference held Oct. 9-12, 2008 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Of the twenty-six UCSB students who recently attended the national SACNAS Conference, eleven were among over 500 students from across the nation who presented research posters. All three student research award recipients had participated in SIMS (Summer Institute in Mathematics and Science) when they started at UCSB and have taken full advantage of the SIMS support network and research opportunities.

We Would Like to Congratulate our SIMS Alumni

• Ricardo Alamillo, Chem E (SIMS 06) for his work on Silica Based Nanocomposites, completed this past summer in a CISEI internship at the University of Chile, Santiago.
• Diego Herrera, Biology (SIMS 07) for his work on the Role of Proliferation in Epiretinal Membranes conducted in Professor Steven Fisher’s group in Neuroscience.
• Lourdes Velazquez, Biophysics (SIMS 07) for her work on DNA and Fluorescing Silver NanoClusters conducted in Professor Deborah Fygenson’s group in Physics.

These recent awards testify to the excellent mentoring that Ofelia Aguirre provides for SIMS and SACNAS students throughout the academic year.

CNSI is proud to be able to host both programs that promote academic excellence and quality research experience and that engage a wide range of science and engineering undergraduates, especially those from underrepresented groups in science and engineering.