A member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Lillian Sparks Robinson has worked in Washington, D.C. for nearly 20 years, devoting her career to supporting the educational pursuits of Native American students, protecting the rights of indigenous people, and empowering tribal communities.  In 2010, Lillian was appointed by President Obama, and confirmed by the U.S.

When Kathleen Jolivette first joined The Boeing Company in the early 2000s, she had little in common with her fellow interns. By the time she arrived at Boeing, Jolivette had spent eight years in the U.S. Army, already started a family, and obtained her undergraduate degree. “I was in my late 30s.” says Jolivette. “I always joked about being the oldest.”

Though she didn’t know it at the time, Dr. Serra Hoagland’s upbringing put her on a path to becoming the only Native woman with a PhD to work for the U.S. Forest Service. Growing up in Placerville, Calif., a small town west of Sacramento in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Dr. Hoagland just knew that she wanted to be outdoors. “My biggest thing was to finish my homework and go outside — that was my goal for the day,” recalls Dr. Hoagland, this year’s winner of the Most Promising Engineer or Scientist Award.

When Laura Smith-Velazquez was eight years old, her parents got her a telescope. The dark sky over Dorr, Mich., made for the perfect laboratory for Smith-Velazquez, an especially curious child. “I was fascinated with the sky,” she recalls. “It was so beautiful and I had so many questions.” 

One of Frances Dupris’ fondest childhood memories is having chicken pox. No, it wasn’t because the illness was fun. Rather, what she remembers with such nostalgia is that having chicken pox meant that she got to spend an extended period of time with her grandmother, Louise Eagle Tail Quick Bear, and great-grandmother, Rebecca Quick Bear, who took care of her while she was sick.

When Sandra Begay was an 11-year-old attending boarding school, she knew she wanted a career in engineering. It wasn’t that she was taking an engineering course in elementary school, but rather it was when she realized there was a problem that could be solved. 

When Brendan Kinkade was a young kid growing up in Oklahoma and Texas, he wanted to know how things work — a concept he now refers to as “practical physics.” At the time, though, the pursuit of practical physics translated into completely taking apart and then reassembling motorbike engines on his back patio. “Every screw and washer had a place, and if you deconstruct things, you have to know how they go back into place,” says Kinkade. “It taught me to be systematic and process-oriented. And to understand that there are many pieces that make up the whole.”

In late 2019, when Mechem Frashier, Diné, heard about a virulent coronavirus spreading in the city of Wuhan, China, she paid attention. She knew from her decades-long career as a nurse that viruses like this don’t respect borders and that soon it could be in the United States. She was right. 

The American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) is a non-profit organization committed to significantly increasing Indigenous representation among science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education programs and career paths all across North America. This people group, due to many extenuating factors, has historically been on the outside looking in when it comes to STEM initiatives.

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