During her senior year as an undergraduate at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology (SDSM&T), a spark ignited for Kimberlynn Dawn Cameron. “A class in sustainable engineering showed me where I wanted to go with my career,” she says. “Now I’m a graduate student enrolled in a dual master’s program at SDSM&T. Starting in January 2018, I’ll be attending Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability in the Executive Master for Sustainability Leadership program.”
Growing up in Wakpala, S.D., on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, Cameron was part of the Spirit Riders Youth Horse Club, the Wakpala Boxing Club, and various school varsity athletics, but spent most of the week focusing on her education. She joined the Army Reserves when she was 17 years old to help her two younger siblings.
Cameron made her college choice after speaking with the SDSM&T dean of students, who visited her school to recruit promising students. Her high school lacked the advanced placement courses that students at many other schools are fortunate enough to have. But there were several staff members who encouraged her to enroll in a course in the math department at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D. “Their concern for my development as a student motivated me to pursue an education at SDSM&T,” she says.
Cameron went on to earn a BS in geological engineering. Currently, she is enrolled in two master’s programs: civil and environmental engineering and engineering management. “I chose to continue with my graduate programs because I want to pursue a career in sustainable development and energy system development to benefit tribal communities economically, socially, and environmentally,” she explains. “My intent has always been to give back to my people and assist in bettering tribes. Every decision I have made has led me to being in the right position to do that.”
What motivates Cameron is her goal of giving back to her community, and she stayed focused on that objective in her academic work and her internships. The past two summers, she interned with Sandia National Laboratories in the Tribal Energy Program, which provided instant immersion in strategic energy planning and development activities working directly with internationally recognized energy experts.
In addition, she was able to work with Oglala Lakota College, SDSM&T, and South Dakota State University Pre-Engineering Education Collaborative (OSSPEEC). She monitored home indoor air quality (IAQ) to identify critical needs and problems within the local communities on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. OSSPEEC is collaborating with the Native American Sustainable Housing Initiative and the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation to implement sustainable housing for the Thunder Valley Community on Pine Ridge. “As a graduate research assistant I monitored IAQ for the straw bale home, Thunder Valley’s first net-zero energy prototype,” she says. “Currently, I am a year-round environmental engineering intern at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., working primarily with the Tribal Energy Program in support of providing American Indian tribes direct technical assistance, capacity-building workshops, resilience assessment and planning, and technology and market analytics.”
Cameron presented “Net-zero Energy Housing Research on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation” at the 2016 International Indoor Air Conference in Ghent, Belgium. She also presented at the 2016 AISES National Conference, receiving first prize in the Oral Graduate Student Engineering and Physical Science Research Division. In addition, the AISES Chapter at Portland State University has invited her to present her research on their campus later this spring.
Outside of school, Cameron has been able to help communities through her membership in AISES, where she has assisted with high school outreach in tribal communities in South Dakota. “I hope to build on these experiences to someday have my own business operation and a program on the reservation that not only increases the number of Native students pursuing degrees in STEM but also optimizes their educational capacity and potential,” she says.
Cameron was taught from an early age to never quit and always do her best. “I was constantly reminded of how far I could go in life as long as I put my best foot forward and steered away from the substance and alcohol abuse in the community I grew up in,” she says. “Thanks to the Mines Advantage professional development program, and the leadership opportunities provided on campus and within the companies and communities that have shaped me, I’ve been able to improve the skills that will help me on my chosen path.”
