For most students, the prerequisites for academic success include more than intro courses. To do well in a rigorous campus environment, students need a strong safety net of support that includes like-minded friends, effective mentors, and cultural affirmation. 

The student debt crisis has been in the headlines lately, and for good reason. Student loans are now second only to mortgages as the country’s principal category of consumer debt. There are more than 44 million student borrowers with a total of $1.45 trillion in debt — the average graduate from the class of 2016 entered the workforce with more than $37,000 in student loans.

“Every day we work toward solving hard technical problems that matter.”

Not long ago, Ginger Hernandez and her husband, Emmanuel, went to a social gathering at a neighbor’s house. When a woman there asked Hernandez how her day was, Hernandez told her it was “fantastic!” Hernandez, Cherokee, says her answer was delivered with such enthusiasm that it prompted a little skepticism. “The woman said, ‘Really? It was fantastic?’ And I told her yes, it really was.”

The first Native Hawai’ian woman to earn a PhD in science, Isabella Aiona Abbott was one of the world’s foremost authorities on limu, or the more than 70 edible varieties of seaweed. Her work won Abbott the accolade “First Lady of Limu.” Also considered the foremost expert on central-Pacific algae, Abbott navigated an ocean of “firsts” for indigenous people through her 90 years (1919–2010).

Mary Golda Ross could have starred in her own motion picture about rocket scientists of color. Ross, Cherokee, is best known for her work as one of the country’s original rocket scientists, but her role was so well hidden that in 1958 she easily stumped the celebrity panelists on the popular TV game show What’s My Line?

When William Tiger was in the fourth grade he made the trek from his home in Florida to Washington, D.C. It wasn’t a school trip to tour the city’s monuments and visit the museums. Instead, Tiger ventured to the nation’s capital with three adults from his Miccosukee Tribe to appear before a U.S. Senate subcommittee meeting chaired by Robert Kennedy.

When Gary Burnette was finishing up his degree in computer science in 1983, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with it: work at IBM. “There was no better place to be,” recalls Burnette, who remembers poring over glossy IBM brochures that detailed innovations the company was driving. “I was hoping I could get into a company that was advancing technology beyond everyone else and be a part of something on the edge.”

Reed has continued to work hard to help Native students interested in STEM careers. His efforts have led Raytheon to engage with local Native student communities in Boston.

Each year Polingyumptewa spends hundreds of hours mentoring and guiding young people who are interested in STEM.

Long considered the first female Native American archaeologist, Bertha Parker Pallan Cody led an intriguing life. She was born in 1907 to Seneca folklorist, archaeologist, musicologist, and historian Arthur Parker and Abenaki actress Beulah Tahamont. She was also the great niece of Ely S. Parker, engineer, attorney, and the first Native American commissioner of Indian affairs (and inspiration for the highest AISES award).