Pack Your Bags for Portland!

This year's much-anticipated AISES National Conference is coming up in Portland, Ore., October 15 to 17. Throughout the three-day event, the conference theme — Weaving Innovation — will be playing out at lecterns, on stages, and in lively conversations.

A sophomore at Navajo Prep, Adelynn Veneno says she was inspired to pursue her project when her auntie contracted an H. pylori infection despite using a commercial water filter. Water insecurity in her community of Dulce, N.M., is exacerbated by an aging infrastructure and environmental degredation. Adelynn's project uses natural sand from the Navajo Nation instead of commercial products to purify water, integrating TEK with mechanical engineering to provide easily localized solutions to contamination.

During her sophomore year of high school, Makenzie Little had a life-changing opportunity to write for her town paper — it was love at first word. Since then, her interest in journalism has grown, and she is focused on honing her skills and expanding her journalistic experiences in high school and beyond. The next step may well be majoring in journalism or communications in college.

Dr. Thomas Reed has approached his education, career, and commitment to the Indigenous STEM community with enthusiasm and dedication. Dr. Reed, Hopi, has firsthand familiarity with the financial challenges many Indigenous families face in both reservation and urban settings. “After all the needs were met, we didn’t have much left growing up,” he recalls. “I saw family members and friends who were engineers working for decades at Boeing, near where I grew up in Seattle.

Discovering AISES during his first month at university not only helped Matthieu Lavallée find a community – it launched new possibilities. He chose to study chemical engineering far from home at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, well-known for its engineering program and co-op work placements.