2020 Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology | FALL - VOL. 35, NO. 2

T H E

J O B S / I N T E R N S H I P

I S S U E

THE

MELLADO MISSION: Impacting the Hispanic community for generations

Carmela Mellado

Editor-in-Chief (retired) Technica Magazine

Ray Mellado

Chair Emeritus and Founder, Great Minds in STEM

INSIDE

• JobMatch to the rescue! CCG is helping students find opportunities when they need it most • Free money! Don’t miss these 10 scholarship opportunities www.hispanicengineer.com

Contact Tracer Jobs: 300k+ workers needed

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Intelligence Analysis Intelligence Collection Foreign Language Analysis Computer Science Cyber Engineering and Physical Sciences Mathematical Sciences Business, Accounting and Budget Inspection, Investigation and Compliance Law and Legal Services Medical and Occupational Health Security and Law Enforcement Human Resources Education and Training General Administrative Support Communication and Public Affairs Infrastructure and Logistics Paid Internships, Scholarships and Co-Op

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FEATURES

CONTENTS

COVER STORY 24

Find out how Ray and Carmela Mellado’s legacy shaped generations.

Ray and Carmela Mellado

INSIDE

18 EXECUTIVES SHARE EXCITING OPPORTUNITIES AT WALMART

Find out more about these opportunities you may not be aware of.

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THE NEED FOR GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY IS AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH

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VADM Adam Davis, who served as the 36th surgeon general of the U.S. Navy, shares his thoughts and advice on the topic.

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PUBLISHER'S PAGE VOLUME 35 | NUMBER 2

DEPARTMENTS News & Events ....................6

Read the latest news about STEM education, virtual conference dates, and much more.

Scholarships ....................... 8

Are you looking for a scholarship? Here are 10 of the best opportunities available.

Financial Aid .................... 10 Want to minimize or eliminate your student debt? We share a few tips to show you how.

Internships .........................12

The coronavirus pandemic impacted the world at historic levels. Many students had their summer internships canceled.

CCG’s Ashley Turner lets you know how JobMatch can help.

Job Tools .......................... 14 Here are 8 productivity tools that can help you stay focused as the world becomes more virtual.

Graduate Life ................... 16

Writing an excellent graduate admissions essay does not require talent; it requires forethought. Here are a few tips to help you with your graduate school essay.

Career Outlook ................29 Here’s everything you need to know about one of today’s most in-demand jobs: contact tracing.

• Industry Overview • Job Horizon • People to Know

SOCIAL JUSTICE WIN FOR UC, FWD.US, UNITED WE DREAM, AND FIRM ACTION

Almost three years after the University of California (UC) became the first university to sue the Department of Homeland Security for its rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), UC applauded the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the end of a program that allowed immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to live and work in the country they know as home. FWD.us, an organization founded by business and tech leaders in 2013 to help fix the immigration system, said the Supreme Court ruling is a win for DACA recipients, their families, and communities across America. Last fall, 143 business associations and companies filed a friend of the court document in support of Dreamers. In a related statement, Greisa Martinez Rosas, DACA recipient and deputy executive director of United We Dream Action, said immigrant young people and their allies have protected nearly 700,000 people from deportation.

Nancy Treviño of FIRM Action, a grassroots effort of individuals and organizations to build support for humane comprehensive immigration reform, said that the DREAM and American Promise Act of 2019 legislation would create a road map to citizenship. The original Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, or DREAM Act, was introduced in 2001. This July, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) announced it was recognizing people who go overlooked.

Among them was David Torres, a system engineer and a part-time adjunct faculty member. According to UTRGV news, he has been working for seven years to provide the opportunity to telecommute. Torres, who is also on the staff senate, said throughout the COVID-19 lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, the UTRGV information technology department continued providing services. “We engage in meetings, work groups, and video conferences via many forms of communications,” he told UTRGV. “This includes Skype, (Microsoft) Teams, phone calls, and Cisco WebEx. We are comfortable in using multiple platforms, so we can make sure our UTRGV Vaqueros know we are still here for them,” he said. Still, Torres noted how unpredictable the year has been with the pandemic. “One piece of advice I can share with my peers is: Protect others by protecting yourself.”

Tyrone D. Taborn Publisher and Chief Content Officer

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SUBSCRIBE Online

VOLUME 35 | NUMBER 1 EXECUTIVE OFFICE Tyrone D. Taborn, CEO and Chief Content Officer Jean Hamilton, President and CFO

Alex Venetta, Associate Publisher, Manager of Partner Services

Eric Price, Vice President, Recruitment and Professional Training

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EDITORIAL AND CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Rayondon Kennedy, Managing Editor Lango Deen, Technology Editor Michael Fletcher, Contributing Editor Gale Horton Gay, Contributing Editor Garland L. Thompson, Contributing Editor Roger Witherspoon, Contributing Editor

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Beverly Wladkowski, Art Director Bryan Davis, Digital Director Rachael DeVore, Digital Channel Manager Joe Weaver, Global Design Interactive

CORPORATE AND Dr. Gwendolyn Boyd, CCG Alumni Committee Chair and ALUMNI RELATIONS President

Dr. Eugene DeLoatch, Chairman, BEYA Alumni Group

Vice Admiral Walter J. Davis, USN (Ret) National Chair,

BEYA Military Alumni

Oliver “Bo” Leslie, Retired Program Manager, Historically

Black Colleges and Universities/Minority Institutions, Boeing

Monica E. Emerson, Women of Color STEM Conference

National Chair

Matt Bowman, CCG Military Program Manager Stars and

Stripes Committee Executive Director/Chief of Staff for

VADM Walt Davis, USN (Ret.)

Ty Taborn, Esq., Corporate Development SALES AND MARKETING Gwendolyn Bethea, Vice President, Corporate Development

Kameron Nelson, Account Executive

Jay Albritton, Social Media Specialist JOBMATCH AND STUDENT

DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

Ashley Turner, University & Professional Relations Development Manager Courtney Taborn, Talent Management Specialist Rod Carter, Recruitment Specialist, College Relations Shelia Richburg, College Coordinator

CONFERENCE AND EVENTS

Ana Bertrand, Conference Coordinator Jennifer Roberts, Customer Success Manager Brandon Newby, Administrative Assistant Toni Robinson, 360 MMG Rutherford & Associates

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Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology, (ISSN 10883452) is a publication devoted to science and technology, and to promoting opportunities in STEM fields for Hispanic Americans.

This publication is bulk mailed to universities and colleges nationwide and in Puerto Rico.

The editors invite editorial submissions directed toward the goals of Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology. In particular, HE&IT magazine wishes to present ideas, current events, and personality profiles of successful Hispanic Americans in science, technology, and related business pursuits. Fully developed articles may be sent, but queries are strongly encouraged.

Articles and letters should be sent to: Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology, Editorial Department, 729 E. Pratt Street, Suite 504, Baltimore, MD 21202. No manuscript will be returned unless accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology cannot be responsible for unsolicited material. Copyright ©2019 by Career Communications Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.

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NEWS &EVENTS

by Lango Deen ldeen@ccgmag.com

SPS students Cristo Sanchez and Shandi Groezinger

UTEP top 10 seniors

Top 10 Seniors at UTEP for 2020 Each year, the Top 10 Seniors Award at The University of Texas at El Paso recognizes students who embody the spirit of a UTEP Miner. “We have been so impressed by the strength and resolve of these seniors, all of whom stressed the importance of family during this time,” said Maribel Villalva, assistant vice president for UTEP’s Office of Alumni Relations.

“We can’t wait to see all of the great things they will do.” The UTEP Top Ten Seniors include Isaac Noel Gándara, a biological science major, who plans to continue medicinal and surgical practices in El Paso, and Nohemi Lopez Valdez, also a biological science major. She wants to open a clinic and perform research while mentoring students and advocating for UTEP’s scholar programs. Jozelyn A. Rascon represented UTEP in multiple conferences, including the 2019 SACNAS event.

UTSA’s 50-year success story continues with innovation In June, the University of Texas at San Antonio announced that it had played a big role in the University of Texas (UT) System’s move up to third place on the list of “Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted U.S. Utility Patents for 2019” released by the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association. UTSA’s 21 issued patents include a design for a power microgrid that balances power demanded by customers with the energy supplied by sustainable sources such as solar, a technique that is able to localize individuals indoors using wireless devices on local area networks, and improvements to medical devices that reduce the processing power needed to execute an electrocardiogram.

SpaceX launch

Texas Tech alum, member of board of regents in leading role for America’s historic test flight Texas Tech University announced that Ginger Kerrick, the first Hispanic female to be a flight director at NASA, a member of the board of regents for the Texas Tech University System, and a Texas Tech University alumna, played a pivotal role in the SpaceX launch.

For the first time in history, NASA astronauts launched from American soil in a commercially built and operated American crew spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley lifted off May 30 on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Another Success Story from Cal Poly Pomona One of the students who earned a degree from the Department

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MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR THESE NATIONAL CONFERENCES Great Minds in STEM (GMiS) The 2020 conference will be virtual

Week of October 5 http://www.greatmindsinstem.org/ conference/ Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) The 2020 SHPE National Convention will also be a virtual event

October 28–November 1 https://www.shpe.org/events/ national-convention-2020 American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) October 15-17 Spokane Convention Center Spokane, WA https://conference.aises.org/ Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) October 31–November 2 Disney's Coronado Springs Resort Lake Buena Vista, FL https://www.hacu.net/hacu/ Registration_AC.asp Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science 2020 SACNAS – The National Diversity in STEM Conference October 22–24, 2020 Long Beach, CA https://www.sacnas.org/what-wedo/conference/

of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering in May was Kimberly Gottula. According to Cal Poly Pomona, Gottula, who graduated magna cum laude in industrial engineering, was named 2020 valedictorian. But that’s not all. Gottula landed a job at Lockheed Martin, the aerospace, defense, arms, security, and advanced technologies company. On July 13, Gottula started a new job as a manufacturing planner. And she’s not alone. Cal Poly Pomona said she plans to relocate with her boyfriend, Michael Green, who also graduated in May and will work in systems engineering at Lockheed Martin.

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Rosa Nuñez appointed to serve on INROADS board of directors for a threeyear term INROADS announced a new leader this summer. Rosa Nuñez, the director of diversity and inclusion (D&I) at a Boston law firm, will serve for a threeyear term, working with the board to advance INROADS’ mission. She will help equip students for corporate leadership roles that affect community renewal and social change and elevate economic status and quality of life.

“Rosa is an incredible leader, and we are so glad to have her on our national board of directors,” said INROADS president and CEO Forest T. Harper Jr. “Because she has led innovative efforts focused on diversity and inclusion, we believe that her ingenuity and knowledge will help us train and build a diverse-by-design future workforce.”

AISES-Leidos Virtual Internship partnered with Indigenous computer science, biology, and public health students Students pursuing degree programs in science, information systems, public health, and epidemiology were invited to apply for an internship that will assist in research to help combat COVID-19. According to the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), the internship was virtual. Work focused on app development using C# and Angular for web development and Python/R for developing analytics. The team of Indigenous computer science, biology, and public health students worked with Leidos and partners on the development of a privacy-preserving contact tracing application. Leidos, a defense, aviation, information technology, and biomedical research company, works with the Department

Rosa Nuñez

of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, the NSA, and other government civil agencies. HE

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SCHOLARSHIPS

by Lango Deen editors@ccgmag.com

10 SCHOLARSHIPS THAT YOU SHOULD APPLY FOR RIGHT NOW! Each semester, Hispanic Engineer magazine compiles information on available scholarships.

In this issue, we bring you a wrap-up of major awards you should know about, their requirements and benefits, and application deadlines.

1.

High school graduates who have earned a standard high school diploma, GED, or home school diploma in Miami Dade County during the May—July 2020 period are eligible to apply for the American Dream Scholarship. Visit https://www.mdc.edu/financialaid/ scholarships/american-dream.aspx

2. The application deadline for the National Hispanic Health Professional Student Scholarship is Sept. 25. Since 2004, the National Hispanic Health Foundation (NHHF) has awarded $1,378,000 to 290 awardees. The NHHF supports educational and research activities to improve the health of Hispanics.

Click here to apply: https://www. nhmafoundation.org/programs/thenhhf-scholarship/ 3. The National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS) Diversity

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Scholarship of $2,000 recognizes five high school junior or senior students who have demonstrated a commitment to expanding the diversity and inclusion initiatives in their school, community, or workplace. The deadline to apply is Nov. 1. https://www.nshss.org/ scholarships/s/nshss-diversityscholarship-2020/ 4. The Horatio Alger National Scholarship Program assists high school students who have faced and overcome great obstacles. The National Scholarship is awarded to eligible students in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The application is open annually from Aug. 1–Oct. 25. https://scholars.horatioalger.org/ about-our-scholarship-programs/ national-scholarships/ 5. $40,000 worth of college scholarships are available to high school seniors through the Edison Scholars program. For students graduating in 2021, the application period will open in fall 2020. Visit Scholars: https://www.edison.com/ home/community/edison-scholars. html 6. The McDonald’s HACER® National Scholarship application period for the 2020-2021 program will open in the fall. https://www.mcdonalds. com/us/en-us/community/hacer. html

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7.

The HACU Scholarship Program 2020-2021 application is open.

Additional scholarship opportunities will be added as they become available. https://www.hacu.net/ hacu/Scholarships.asp

8. The application period for the Great Minds in STEM (GMiS) Scholarship during the 2021-22 academic year will open in late January 2021.

The deadline will be April 1, 2021.

Visit the website for more details: http://www.greatmindsinstem.org/ scholarships/ 9. The American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) provides a wide range of scholarship opportunities. To apply, you must be an AISES member. https://www. aises.org/students/scholarships 10. SHPE has numerous scholarships for 2020-2021. There are offerings for high school seniors in STEM beginning at a community college or four-year university, students pursuing a degree in STEM, students or professionals pursuing technical certificates or graduate-level professional education that increase their professional competencies with select institutions, graduate students pursuing a master's or doctoral STEM degree program at an accredited university. https:// www.shpe.org/students/scholarshpe HE

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40%

According to New CBcampus.com Survey

of hiring managers would hire college interns for full-time, permanent positions.

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The CCG JobMatch internship program connects and places diverse students and recent graduates with top STEM employers that offer invaluable work opportunities and experiences.

If you are ready to jump-start your career, visit

www.ccgjobmatch.com

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FINANCIAL AID

by Evan Crosby editors@ccgmag.com

HOW TO GRADUATE COLLEGE WITH LITTLE TO NO STUDENT LOAN DEBT

I

n today's job market, having a college degree is often a necessity in the same way that a high school diploma was a generation ago. Unfortunately, millions of students leave school owing tens of thousands of dollars in student loans.

Furthermore, many graduates struggle to repay their loans, which often impacts their ability buy a house, start a family, and enjoy financial freedom.

Luckily, there is a way that you can graduate from college without a lot of debt by following these tactics.

1. Make a Cost-Effective College Choice You need to be strategic about your school choice, especially when it comes to the cost of attendance. Here are some examples of more cost-effective strategies that you could consider when pursuing a college degree:

• • • • •

Start out at a community college and then transfer to finish your degree.

Attend a less expensive public university over a more expensive private university.

Choose an in-state college instead of an out-of-state college.

Select a school close enough to live at home to save money on living expenses.

Attend a no-loan college.

2. Apply for Scholarships Scholarships are a good way to pay for your education and reduce your need to take out student loans. You just need to take the time to research and apply to as many scholarships as you qualify for. Start by searching the Internet for different grants and scholarships.

Also, contact prospective colleges about available scholarships. If you are still in high school, ask a guidance counselor if they know of any grants and scholarships.

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3. Apply for Financial Aid In addition to scholarships, financial aid can help you pay for college too.

Therefore, you need to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to determine your eligibility for financial aid. The schools that you list on your FAFSA will then send you a financial aid award letter that will detail the types and respective amounts of assistance that you are eligible to receive. Here are the most common forms of federal student aid:

• • • •

Pell Grants Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant Work-study Federal student loans

When you are filling out your FASFA, you will be asked about your preference between work-study aid and student loans. Make sure that you select to receive more work-study assistance, so you won't have to rely (as much) on student loans.

accruing interest, you should pay the interest portion to keep your debt from growing before you graduate.

In short, if you want to graduate college with little to no student loan debt, then you must select the most cost-effective school for you to attend.

Furthermore, you need to apply for scholarships and financial aid. Find a part-time job to help pay for your school and living expenses. If you do have to take out student loans, try to start repaying them while you are still in school. That way, you won't graduate with as much debt. HE

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4. Work Part-Time While in School If you are really serious about avoiding (or at least minimizing) student loans, you should find a part-time job to work at while in school. That way, you have an income to help pay for your living expenses. Furthermore, if you are really thrifty, you could save up money before the start of each semester to pay as much of your tuition bill as you can.

5. Start Repaying Student Loans While in School You might end up having to take out some student loans to pay for school.

However, that doesn't mean you have to wait until you graduate to start paying off your debt. If you can afford it, start making payments on your loans while you are still in school. At the very least, if you have student loans that are

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INTERNSHIPS

By Lango Deen ldeen@ccgmag.com

GETTING THINGS DONE JobMatch with CCG’s Ashley Turner Once news of the public health emergency had sunk in, and the country began to close shop state by state, many employers started revoking job offers. For Ashley Turner, who’s worked as a university and professional relations development manager at Career Communications Group (CCG) for four years, it was one of the biggest human resource (HR) crises she’d ever faced.

T

he fall internship season, which traditionally starts in September, is usually the beginning of a busy year for the self-starter at CCG’s Detroit Metro office.

Turner’s job includes matching science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) talent like Brenden Dominick, a mechanical engineering major at Oklahoma State University, with internships. During the summer of 2019, Dominick worked as a process

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Ashley Turner, University and Professional Relations Development Manager Career Communications Group, Inc.

engineering intern at Boston Scientific, a medical device manufacturer.

Other students who did an internship at Boston Scientific include Samantha Schwab, a New American University Scholar majoring in chemical engineering at Arizona State University, and Kendra Currier, who did a process development engineering co-op from August through December of 2019. Currier is majoring in chemical engineering at the University of Toledo in Ohio.

Coming off the success of CCG’s BEYA STEM Conference Job Fair in February, Turner was sure she had students like Dominick, Schwab, and Currier ready to launch their careers in the spring of 2020. But COVID-19 lockdowns upended the best-laid plans for more than 300 students and new college graduates.

Turner used the time at home to max

HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | FALL 2020

out Jobscience solutions. This time, it wasn’t just teleworking to attract, engage, and recruit candidates; she needed a whole new strategy for keeping employers connected.

“I’m literally on Zoom every hour of the day, or I’m texting,” Turner said on Microsoft Teams. “I have two MacBooks going, my iPad, and iPhone.”

Turner’s multitasking efforts have been productive. To date, she has placed about 40 STEM college graduates with Ernst & Young, one of the largest professional services firms in the world.

“Kohler picked up 11,” added Turner.

Like Ernst & Young, Kohler, which manufactures plumbing products, tiles, engines, and generators, takes part regularly in job fairs held at CCG events such as the BEYA STEM Conference in the nation’s capital and the Women of Color in STEM Conference held every October in Detroit, MI.

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CCG’s JobMatch specializes in the recruitment and placement of STEM professionals and interns. Its large and growing roster of internship and job-ready candidates are actively involved in CCG conferences, college career fairs, community programs, professional development, and career networking events.

“I want to try to help as many students (and new graduates) as possible,” Turner said. “I know for a lot of them, they’re not feeling the love from employers, so I have meetings to try and keep their spirits up and figure out strategic ways in which JobMatch can help.”

Listen to Turner talk more about the JobMatch program here.

CCG’s JobMatch specializes in the recruitment and placement of STEM professionals and interns. Its large and growing roster of internship and jobready candidates are actively involved in CCG conferences, college career fairs, community programs, professional development, and career networking events. CCG focuses exclusively on the promotion of STEM opportunities to historically underrepresented groups.

On campus and in the community, Dominick has served as a Native American student advocate, vice president of the Native American Student Association, and treasurer of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) chapter at Oklahoma State University. At Boston Scientific, he worked on innovative cancer treatments and analyzed experiments submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dominick expects to graduate in May 2021.

Turner is confident that she will help everyone find a job.

Her day starts at about 8:30 a.m. combing through Salesforce applications and her candidate pool in Jobscience. After reading through tons of emails, she begins video conferencing. She deftly manages Zoom links, video, and audio online meetings with consummate ease.

Turner keeps the door of her makeshift office closed. But when her pit bull, named Doctor, appears on the screen,

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he knows not to derail the streamlined hiring process.

“My message to students is to keep that ambition going,” Turner said. “Take this downtime to better yourself for the workforce. Because work is coming, and it’s going to come full throttle. So, we need them to be ready. For employers, JobMatch is here to assist in every way possible to link with a great talent pool.

But to be successful at this time, they need to transition as well.”

Although employers like American Express, BAE Systems, and IBM Research have announced a hiring freeze (some suspended with a chance of reinstatement if circumstances change), other companies like 3M, AT&T, Boeing, and Capital One are offering remote internships.

“I know HR teams at Boston Scientific Corporation are trying to figure out what’s going to work for them strategically,” Turner said. “But a lot of companies were blindsided by COVID-19. They weren’t ready for virtual. They’re so used to interviewing face-to-face and people coming in to work. People at T-Mobile and Abbott Laboratories (medical devices and healthcare company) were quick to transition to virtual,” she said. HE

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JOB TOOLS

by Stephanie Nusbaum editors@ccgmag.com

8 PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS FOR GETTING MORE WORK DONE

O

nline entrepreneurs are always looking for an edge in business.

One of the simplest ways to achieve more is by becoming extra productive. Getting more done within the same period of time doesn't involve making radical changes or advancements in your operations.

Only minor adjustments are needed.

Integrating productivity tools into your daily processes is a simple way to get more streamlined. The following examples will all add small improvements to the way you run your company.

Evernote

Evernote is fundamentally a notetaking app, but it has taken this concept to the next level. You can quickly record notes, save web pages, scan documents, share information with your team, and more. The notes can then be synced across your devices for easy accessibility. Teams can use the app to collaborate, sharing ideas across the platform.

Google Docs

Google Docs lets you create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more. There are various templates to give you an easy starting point for a project. You can then share your results with a selected audience or publish it to the world.

Google Docs uses cloud storage, so you don't need to worry about losing your work.

RescueTime

RescueTime is an app designed to discover how you spend your time each day and where improvements can be made. The tool runs in the background, tracking the time spent on social media, email, and other areas.

You can quickly work out your digital habits and make changes to become more productive.

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Todoist

Todoist is an advanced to-do list, helping you manage your time effectively. You can add items to the list, categorize them, and track progress. There is also the ability to share your lists with teams, allowing for easy collaboration. Your list can be synced across multiple devices, offering accessibility wherever you are.

Freedom

Freedom is a simple app for blocking access to designated websites. There are so many distractions online, particularly with social media. Freedom can temporarily block access to these sites, allowing you to give maximum attention to necessary tasks. If your willpower is low, there is also a lock option to prevent early access to blocked sites.

Numerous apps can be run within the tool, so you can share content between your team without needing to access different sites.

You may only need a few of these tools to make a significant difference in productivity. Entrepreneurs often look for big ideas and concepts that can alter the fortunes of their company.

IFTTT

IFTTT is a tool that lets you set rules across multiple devices. For example, you could post an image to one site and have the tool post it across your other social sites. When you finish a task, you can set a rule that the file is uploaded to your Dropbox account.

Adding this type of automation to your daily life can make a dramatic difference in your productivity.

Brain.fm

Brain.fm aims to increase your focus through music. The tool is backed by scientific claims that your focus can be improved through purpose-built music.

The sessions last 15 minutes, allowing you to relax and meditate. This extra focus can help with more concentrated work and also with your sleep patterns.

Productivity, though, is a simple aspect of business that doesn't cost too much to improve. Even if you only make marginal gains, these can add up. Try to integrate some of these tools into your operations and see how much more you can get done. HE

Chanty

Chanty is a tool to help teams collaborate more effectively. You can chat together, share documents, and organize tasks. You can search all previous activity, allowing you to stay on top of complicated projects.

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Getting more done within the same period of time doesn't involve making radical changes or advancements in your operations.

Only minor adjustments are needed.

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GRADUATE LIFE

by Anne Halifax editors@ccgmag.com

3 TIPS TO HELP YOU ACE YOUR GRADUATE SCHOOL ESSAY If you're ready to apply for graduate school, you are likely acquainted with the admission process.

Many of the pieces to the admission process involve forms, letters of recommendation, and mailing transcripts.

But the most essential piece of your graduate school application is your essays.

W

riting an excellent graduate admissions essay does not require talent; it requires forethought. And essays for any type of graduate school admission, whether it be for an M.B.A., master's degree, or Ph.D. in any field, must consist of the same basic elements. In terms of the process and allocation of your time, you should spend about 70 percent of your time in the pre-writing phase, 10 percent of your time in the writing phase, and 20 percent of your time in the editing phase.

1. Pre-writing

Another way to describe the prewriting phase would be thinking or planning. This is where you should allocate the majority of your time before writing your actual admissions

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essays. As Albert Einstein once said, "If I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions." Einstein's approach is quite relevant to essay writing as well.

During the pre-writing phase, you should analyze each essay prompt provided. Think about what they are really asking and how you can effectively and efficiently answer the question. It is in this analysis that you determine the relevance of your essay for the admissions committee.

If you write a beautiful essay, but it fails to respond to the prompt and the questions asked, it will not be relevant, and the admissions committee will move on.

Consider these essays as a proposal: The graduate school is requesting good applicants who will make them look good and represent them well. In all of your essay responses, you must prove that you can fulfill this need. Read deeply into the prompts to determine exactly what the school is looking for, and then answer those needs very specifically. This will make you a strong candidate.

2. Writing

Once you have spent plenty of time thinking about the admission essay prompts and determining how you can fulfill their needs, you can write a first draft of each essay. You do not need to spend time on elegant language at this point. Instead, focus on the logical flow of ideas. Focus on transitions and incorporating everything you'd like to say.

The first draft should be written fairly quickly because it is far easier to edit when there is something already on the page than it is to edit while you are trying to write simultaneously. Group like paragraphs and thoughts, make ideas concise, and limit yourself to what is relevant.

HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | FALL 2020

3. Editing

Now that you have a first draft of your admissions essays, you can edit.

Revisit the prompts and make sure you have answered the questions fully and effectively. Re-read each paragraph and consider how you can get those ideas across in a more succinct and eloquent manner.

This is the time to put your best polishing and writing skills into play.

But remember, everyone can benefit from another set of eyes. Be sure to ask a friend, colleague, professor, or professional editor to take a look and make suggestions as well. You will be the final say on what is incorporated, so don't be afraid to at least get opinions.

Formatting is the last step in editing.

All of your essays should have the same font and size, which should be Times New Roman or Arial and 10 or 12-point. This is not the time to get crazy with anything fancy.

In short, good graduate school essays will be well planned and thought out.

More weight will be given to a focused essay with a logical flow than to an essay with flowery language that simply isn't relevant. You don't need to worry about being the best writer.

Your essays will get you admitted if they show the committee that you are a good candidate for the program, you have paid attention to what they are looking for, and you will represent them well. HE

Would you like some more advice? Check out this article online: l.ead.me/bbdkb3

www.hispanicengineer.com

Read deeply into the prompts to determine exactly what the school is looking for, and then answer those needs very specifically.

This will make you a strong candidate.

www.hispanicengineer.com

HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | FALL 2020

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Walmart InfoSec team talks about leveraging STEM to build a world class team According to Walmart’s website, you can use technology, data and design to power the future of retail and enable new ways for customers to shop, associates to work and the enterprise to operate.

What does the Technology and Information Security unit do in one of the world's largest organizations? How is Walmart demonstrating innovation?

Walmart’s Global Technology division is made up of thousands of technologists across Bentonville, AR, Silicon Valley, Bangalore, India and beyond. At Walmart we like to say we are peopleled, tech empowered – and our Global Tech team is all about building capabilities to power our associates and save our customers time and money.

We are made up of Segments that span across our three major business units – Walmart U.S., Sam’s Club, and Walmart International – and Horizontals like Data, Platforms, Core Services, Global Business Services, and Information Security.

Within Infosec we look for high performing talent with Critical knowledge in the areas of Cryptography, Cloud Security, Identity & Access Management, Digital Forensics, Advanced Malware Prevention, Incident Response, Networking and Systems Engineering, and Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC).

Through pursuit of this talent we build high functioning diverse teams capable of taking on any situation.

It is critical that Walmart execute against a

robust information security technology strategy that meets the needs of technology and business partners while ensuring security is in place to maintain our status as the most trusted retailer. To aid in this effort, we must hire the best and brightest talent we can find and recruit from diverse pools of resources.

If you not yet heard of ViperMonkey, it is a VBA Emulation engine written in Python, designed to analyze and de-obfuscate malicious VBA Macros contained in Microsoft Office files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher).

Kirk Sayre, one of our Incident Management associates, is the primary developer and maintainer of this Open Source tool. We use it as part of an automated process to quickly identify when new maldocs are created and used to attack our environment. We were recently notified that the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center is leveraging this tool extensively in their mission to protect critical infrastructure and perform counterterrorism work. It is amazing that the work Kirk is doing is not only being used to protect Walmart but is used to protect our country. We are humbled and honored to work alongside such bright and capable associates. Well-done, Kirk!

Kierra Smith, a Senior Software Engineer and graduate of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, a historically black college and university, developed the Walmart initial MFA credential provider for the company.

Gary Simms Sr., Distinguished Architect, Information Security Strategist, Walmart 18

HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | FALL 2020

www.hispanicengineer.com

Career Areas • Cybersecurity • Data Science and Analytics • Information Technology • Product Management Technology • Project and Program Management Technology • Software Development and Engineering • UX Design Brenda Pacheco became the first one in her family to obtain an undergraduate degree when she graduated from George Mason University in 2018. As cyber threats increasingly emerged, her interest grew and led her to obtain her Master’s Degree in Cybersecurity Strategy and Information Management from The George Washington University in May 2020. During her short time with the company, she has learned on-prem Identity Access Management skills while managing identity for a 2.2. millionmember ecosystem. Brenda now splits her time managing on-prem identity and access management as well as learning Microsoft Azure Cloud Identity.

This technical knowledge allows her to better serve her customers while maintaining a security focus.

Vanessa King joined Walmart with vast experiences from Telecommunications, Banking, and Major League Baseball which helped mold her into the dynamic Cybersecurity resource she is today.

She graduated from Rutgers University in 2010 with a degree in Information Technology. Her immense levels of experience and education allowed her to add value to the team immediately. www.hispanicengineer.com

Vanessa is currently focused on efficiently optimizing reporting in the Identity Access Management environment to allow faster analytics to better manage Identity across the Walmart digital ecosystem.

Why is it important to recruit people of color and veterans at events like BEYA? It is critically important that we create an inclusive culture that drives creativity of thought through partnership and collaboration with a diverse set of resources and capabilities.

Events like WOC, BEYA, and other such diverse platforms provide us the opportunity to recruit innovative and creative humans capable to help evolve our IT and Cyber Security organizations.

How will a virtual internship contribute to this strategy?

Virtual internships allow extended support mechanisms to address capacity and demand management challenges that have strategic impact on business imperatives. These virtual

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Walmart employees Vanessa King, Kierra Smith, Brenda Pacheco, and Kirk Sayre.

internships provide talent utilization and resources required to execute on strategic priorities and aspirational goals regardless of their geographical location.

Walmart’s internship program has been a differentiator in Walmart’s talent pipeline for years. Looking at InfoSec alone, many interns over the years have converted to full-time hires and remain at Walmart today.

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19

Walmart’s internship program has been a differentiator in Walmart’s talent pipeline for years. Looking at InfoSec alone, many interns over the years have converted to fulltime hires and remain at Walmart today.

What will virtual internships do to contribute to the different functional areas?

Virtual internships will provide alignment with various functional areas within Walmart to diversity of thought to the organizational operations and allow for new and emerging insights as the interns participate in design thinking sessions and innovative projects.

Virtual internships are a contributing component of functional area delivery.

Interns will work on real-world projects and deliver solutions that are directly related to functional area goals and objectives.

What sort of skills, qualifications, and certification should applicants have for internships with Walmart Information Security?

Interns should be self-starters (proactively engage with others and initiate work activity, at some level, on their own).

A good number of students today have their security+ and are involved with Infosec specific student groups.

Interns should be studying Information and Cybersecurity and have some background in information systems and 20

engineering.

Interns should be comfortable connecting with others in a virtual format to include virtual collaboration and communication.

Why are virtual internships popular currently?

Virtual internships are popular at this current time in corporate America due to the constraints of the global pandemic of Covid19 and the need to accommodate a remote workforce.

Additionally, it aligns with the way the millennials and gen x students are accustomed to working via social media and digital platforms.

Virtual internships can provide employers with a larger pool of candidates (i.e., employers are not restricted to specific locations).

Virtual internships likely align well with today’s interns – they are accustomed to online/virtual communications and typically excel in that way of working.

eDiscovery and Forensic Services Laboratory The eDiscovery and Forensic Services Laboratory (eD&FSL) is accredited under the internationally recognized standards defined by ISO/IEC 17025:2017 and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) National Accreditation Board (ANAB). The Accreditation is an independent confirmation that the laboratory meets or exceeds the standards for technical competence and effective laboratory administration.

The eDiscovery Team focusses on assisting in identifying, collecting and processing ESI (Electronically Stored Information) both structured and unstructured data sources in support of Walmart’s World-wide Legal portfolio.

The Forensic Services Team assists Global Investigations with technical expertise as they collect and obtain evidence ranging from the various WM systems, laptops and mobile devices.

The FS Team also consists of an internal team dedicated to Hard Drive repair and recovery of data from the most technical devices in their environment.

Most recently they have added a Forensic Video Unit which supports the collection, enhancement and analysis of all Walmart Video obtained in major incidents and/or investigative support.

HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | FALL 2020

All of these associates within the Laboratory are certified in their area of expertise and come to Walmart with various backgrounds and technical knowledge.

Tell us about Walmart’s Live Better U Program?

Live Better U launched a year ago, and associates have been jumping at the opportunity to earn a college degree for just $1 a day. Since its launch, more than 7,500 Walmart associates from all 50 states have been accepted into at least one of the programs.

To help prepare even more associates for the future, we are expanding our Live Better U education benefits to include 14 new technology degrees and certificates for – also for $1 a day.

These developing options include cyber security, computer science, computer and network security, and computing technology —on top of the business and supply chain degrees currently offered.

We won’t stop there because in the coming months, we plan to add even more educational opportunities in additional fields, so if you do not see a degree that matches what you’re interested in, stay tuned.

We are also offering high school students a bridge to the future by extending access to the full menus of Live Better U’s learning programs to our younger associate base.

2020 BEYA participants Jerry Geisler, Chief Information Security Officer: We must double down on BEYA to recruit people of color, women, and military talent present at the event.

Nick Givens, Senior Director II, Security Engineering and BEYA Award Winner: We saw an amazing amount of diverse talent at BEYA. It a great talent pipeline that we need to have a greater stake in going forward to grow the organization.

Melissa Yandell, Senior Director, Identify and Access Management: The diversity and caliber of talent at BEYA was extremely impressive. BEYA provides a forum for connecting with future leaders in the STEM fields, it draws the type of motivated, skilled, individuals we are always looking to recruit into our company.

To Learn more information about the many opportunities at Walmart, please visit www.careers.walmart.com

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The power of diversity in leadership.

We understand that our future is tied to the success of diverse talents and future leaders of innovation and technology. And to develop the world’s most advanced systems, we need the contributions and talents of all employees.

Learn more at lockheedmartin.com/diversity

VC19-06213 © 2019 Lockheed Martin Corporation

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TM

BY LANGO DEEN editors@ccgmag.com

GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY

AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE PARADIGM OF NATIONAL SECURITY IN ANY NATION Dr. Adam M. Robinson, Jr.,

director of the VA Maryland Health Care System, recalls reading about COVID-19 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) during November or December of 2019.

As a physician, Dr. Robinson gets the peer-reviewed journal regularly, which, among other things, publishes opinions of leading scholars on a range of medical issues.

"It wasn't an alert," Dr. Robinson said of the JAMA article. "It was a mention of a SARS-type of pulmonary infection that seemed to be coming around the world."

The next time Dr. Robinson heard about the coronavirus was on television in January.

"The rest of the history is pretty clear," added the surgeon who has over 30 years of experience as a senior leader in the United States Military Healthcare System.

While serving as the 36th surgeon general of the U.S. Navy (2007–2011), he said it was given that within a period of 36 hours, any infectious disease could move around the world.

"Public health has no borders," Dr. Robinson said, paraphrasing something he heard from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, part of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. "In that regard, we 22

should really think about how we acquire the proper knowledge."

Here's what Dr. Robinson suggested: 1.

Marshall scientific leadership and expertise. “That includes laboratory capacity, and also the innovation that must occur to develop tests for not just COVID-19, but any type of disease,” Robinson said. “How can we do it safely?"

2. Collect the data and use analytics to drive impact. “Because that's going to be how we reach the solution and mitigate or overcome the disease,” he explained.

3. Human services. "The first part of acquiring knowledge is the analytic part, and then the second part is coupling the analytics with human services,” Robinson said. “What are human services? Social workers, non-governmental workers, educators with a passion for understanding the specific culture and being culturally competent.

What does all this mean? We need to have contact tracing and education, so people will understand what they should do.

If we're talking COVID-19, then we need to have conversations around masking and social distancing, and handwashing. And doing these things consistently and properly."

HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | FALL 2020

4. Community-based intervention model. "We need to know what we're going to do in any given community," he said. “A model geared towards New York City, a high-density impact area, will be different from Montana, a low-density area. Unless we have cultural competence and are culturally aware, we will not be effective in the different areas that we have to go," he said.

The one-time chief executive officer for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps healthcare systems said global health security helps reduce the disease burden in whatever community you live, adding that health security promotes economic and political stability and resilience.

Robinson referenced various outlets and regional newspapers, which have argued that in light of what has happened during the coronavirus pandemic, the United States must place a greater emphasis on human security in the national security discourse.

"Pandemics have a health consequence—that's obvious—but they also have a tremendous economic and political effect," he said. "There can be economic and political instability, which is fomented directly because of an infectious disease or illness that affects a community." www.hispanicengineer.com

The whole point of people being secure—not being afraid, not going hungry, and having the means to survive—means not being threatened with pandemics, which disrupt the normal social or medical order of a society. Robinson said that climate change should be added to the human security arena of the national security discourse.

medicine from Indiana University School of Medicine and completed his residency in general surgery at the National Naval Medical Center and fellowship in colon-rectal surgery at the Carle Foundation Hospital, an affiliated hospital of the University of Illinois School of Medicine. Robinson also has a Master of Business Administration from the University of South Florida.

He’s also concerned that with the onset of the flu season in the fall and an under-utilization of vaccines, there might be an additional outbreak of measles and influenza with the COVD19 pandemic.

As the surgeon general, Dr. Robinson served as the principal Tricare Health Plan representative for active duty sailors and marines, their families, and Navy and Marine Corps retirees and their families, numbering over 2.5 million people. Dr. Robinson led a team of 63,000 Navy Medicine personnel in over 220 healthcare facilities located worldwide with an annual budget of $3.5 billion. By 2007, when he became surgeon general, the basics of health issues had become pretty clear, he said.

"We can try to keep diseases from spreading, but we do not travel by ships or cross-country wagons, which take days or weeks. We travel by cars and airplanes,” he said. “We travel fast. We can go to remote areas of the world and be back in metropolitan areas quickly, so we have to make sure we can keep up with the disease burden that we may carry when that occurs."

Robinson says the Women of Color STEM Conference has an intersectional approach of empowering women for these goals and objectives. As biologists, electrical or chemical engineers, data scientists, computer engineers, or mathematicians, students and professionals from this community can fall into any of the global health security or cultural competencies.

“People like Katherine Johnson put us on the moon,” he said of the now legendary NASA mathematician who helped sync Project Apollo’s lunar module with the lunar-orbiting command and service module.

He also cited the achievements of hidden figures/women inventors and innovators of medical devices and equipment.

“The Women of Color STEM Conference makes sure we leave no one behind and that we tap into those areas that we need to,” he said. “Our world has so many people who will never do the things they’re supposed to, unless we as an international conference make sure we get the diversity that will provide the next lifesaving discovery or invention that we need in the future.”

The son of a medical doctor, Dr. Robinson received his doctor of www.hispanicengineer.com

"Medicine has its own language, and so no matter what language people speak, they can still understand the grasp of what happens in medicine," he said.

In the global health security sphere, he urges high school, college, and university graduates to first consider the United States military in general and the U.S. Navy in particular.

“The military is a great place to start because it has wonderful global health initiatives that are longstanding and based around the world,” he said. “The U.S. Department of State has similar activities,” he said.

As surgeon general of the United States Navy, medical diplomacy was one of the areas that the retired vice admiral worked on in Africa and Asia. “Those experiences still exist,” Robinson said. “The Army and Air Force have the same.”

“Be available to have the mentoring and preparations that you need. You must also put in the hard work,” he urged. “You have to be willing to make sacrifices and make sure you are prepared when the opportunity arises.

Preparation and passion will always carry you through,” he said.

Robinson recommended his alma mater, Indiana University Bloomington, a public research university that now has a global health security component like many other universities across the United States. He also suggested

“Be available to have the mentoring and preparations that you need. You must also put in the hard work,” he urged. “You have to be willing to make sacrifices and make sure you are prepared when the opportunity arises.

Preparation and passion will always carry you through,” he said.

Adam M. Robinson, Jr., MD Medical Center Director, VA Pacific Islands Health Care System

that students should consider starting their careers in public health service in agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) where many men and women have spent their entire careers making a difference in the world.

Robinson says he’s looking forward to an inclusive meeting at the Women of Color STEM Conference. “I’m not interested in perfection,” he said. “But I’m interested in clarity in what we can do as individuals to address and mitigate the problem. It’s not about one person; it’s about all of us,” he said.

“The knowledge we accrue as a group is exponential in terms of its growth, its power, and its impact.” HE

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Mellado Mission THE

HAS INSPIRED GENERATIONS

BY LANGO DEEN ldeen@ccgmag.com

Ray Mellado, Chair Emeritus and Founder, Great Minds in STEM Carmela Mellado, Editor in Chief (retired), Technica Magazine

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HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | FALL 2020

www.hispanicengineer.com

SHE IS A WRITER WITH A DEGREE IN ENGLISH. HE LEVERAGED A DEGREE IN HISTORY AND A BACKGROUND IN COACHING INTO A 20-YEAR CAREER AT ONE OF AMERICA’S LARGEST AND MOST INFLUENTIAL TECHNOLOGY CORPORATIONS. BOTH CAME OF AGE DURING THE 1960S AND WERE DEEPLY INSPIRED BY THE SPIRIT OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT FOR MARGINALIZED PEOPLE THAT DEFINED THE DECADE.

W

hen they married in 1971, Ray and Carmela Mellado knew they wanted to make a difference in the Latino community. By the end of the decade, they had zeroed in on a crisis forming on the horizon that few seemed to notice—though even they didn’t completely appreciate its full size and scope at first.

Ray was hired by tech pioneer Xerox a year after they were married. As a young associate, he was exposed to the technology developed at Xerox’s legendary Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) that would soon revolutionize the world.

“The PC, the graphic user interface, the mouse, laser printers, ethernet, and local area networks (LAN)—all of that was invented at Xerox PARC,” Ray recalls. “Microsoft, Apple, and others, of course, figured out how to bring it all into the home in the 80s, and the rest is history. But Xerox perfected all of the building blocks that computers and the Internet are still built on all these years later—and they did it 10 years before the first PCs went on sale…20 years before the first public web page was published.”

Xerox famously couldn’t figure it out, as many of the new gizmos developed at PARC didn’t align with its massively profitable mainframe and copier businesses, nor did they seem to appeal to its largely corporate clientele. But while Xerox is today the cautionary tale for high-tech corporations worldwide that resist pivoting to leverage their own R&D, a different lesson began formulating in Ray’s mind. www.hispanicengineer.com

“Two things hit me like a ton of bricks after training at PARC,” he remembers.

“First, it became crystal clear to me that the good, high-paying jobs of the future would involve all of the technology we were developing at Xerox.

“And second, I realized that anyone who didn’t get a solid math and science education in school—what today we call the STEM subjects— would be locked out of these jobs of the future. And as we looked at the Latino community in Southern California, and later across the country, we saw how few of our kids were getting that education, and we realized we were in serious trouble. We knew we needed to do something.”

The issue, as the Mellados saw it, wasn’t merely one of access. There was a fundamental lack of awareness of careers in STEM within the Latino community—for a variety of reasons.

“We just weren’t exposed to people who did these jobs,” Ray explains.

Latinos in the 70s and 80s were more likely to attend underserved K-12 schools with few, if any, advanced math and science classes. “And even if their schools did offer those courses,” Ray continued, “the Latino students were usually steered into shop classes and encouraged by their counselors to pursue trades after high school, not attend college.”

“There also weren’t many, if any, role models at the time that our kids or their parents could point to,” Carmela adds. “We didn’t see them at home or in our neighborhoods. Latino children,

particularly in inner cities and rural areas where most of us live, were likely raised by parents who didn’t attend college or even graduate from high school. And we didn’t see engineers or scientists who looked like us or had last names like us on TV, in magazines, or on the news or in movies.”

This dearth of role models is where Ray and Carmela decided to start their journey. “Before we could address needs like scholarships, internships, curriculum reform, and all the things our organization engages in today, we had to first convince our community that careers in STEM were not only a possibility for them, but a reality,” Ray stated.

While at Xerox, Ray helped found the Hispanic Association for Professional Advancement (HAPA), one of the first Latino employee resource groups in corporate America. As the first president of HAPA, he began to network with groups like the California Association of Mexican American Contractors (CAMAC) and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE).

“Through Ray’s work at HAPA and Xerox, we had begun to meet some remarkable Hispanic engineers just across Southern California,” Carmela recalls. “So, we knew the role models were out there. We just needed to find them and tell their stories—not only so our own people could be inspired, but so America could see what Latinos were capable of.”

Ray and Carmela were soon contracted to publish newsletters for CAMAC and

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LEFT: Tyrone Taborn and Ray Mellado at the 2002 HENAAC Award Show in South Padre Island, TX. RIGHT: Fred Rodriguez, Vice President of Human Resources at Hughes Space and Communications (later bought by Boeing) with Carmela Mellado at the 1995 HENAAC Conference in Houston, TX.

SHPE in order to tell the stories of their members successfully pursuing careers in STEM. Building on the success of these publications, they partnered with Tyrone Taborn and Career Communications Group, Inc. in 1985 to launch this publication to give these stories a national audience alongside CCG’s already successful Black Engineer Magazine.

“I’ll never forget when that first issue came off the press,” Carmela remembers fondly. “To see Latinos finally given the treatment and the platform they deserved was one of the proudest moments of my life. We knew we were making difference.”

Carmela served as Hispanic Engineer and Information Technology magazine’s first editor in chief, guiding the publication for over 10 years alongside other early influential contributors like Grady Wells and Floyd Sowell. Ray, meanwhile, began looking for ways to leverage the magazine’s success.

“Thanks to our partnership with CCG and SHPE, we began to tackle the problem of providing role models to our community,” he recalls, “but we knew we were just scratching the surface. The biggest challenge, as we began to understand it, was achieving parity for Latinos in STEM.” By the late 80s, it was clear to demographers that Latinos would soon overtake African Americans as the largest minority group in the United States, something that came to pass in 2003. Projections had Hispanics becoming the majority in states like California as early as 2040. And yet, by any metric, Latino participation in STEM nowhere near reflected this growing demographic clout.

26

“Everywhere we looked, the statistics were appalling and unsustainable,” Ray remembers. “From the numbers of Latino students taking algebra by the eighth grade and calculus by the 12th grade, to those pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees at ABET-accredited colleges and universities, to the numbers of graduate students and faculty at R1 universities—we were well below parity at every level.”

America, it became clear, would not be able to sustain its status as the world’s technological superpower if its largest minority group did not close the parity gap in STEM. To begin to combat this, Ray partnered with CCG to convene the first Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC) in 1989. The goal was to bring the engineers and scientists featured in the magazine face to face with Latino high school and college students who needed to hear their stories the most, but also to provide a forum where the best and brightest minds in academia, government, and corporate America could strategize, organize, and formulate solutions to these larger issues affecting the Latino community and the country.

To build on the success of the conference, Ray and Carmela formally established the organization that would become Great Minds in STEM (GMiS) that same year in order to expand the scope of their mission, which they grew under the HENAAC banner for the next 20 years. In 1999, they launched their second publication venture independently with the roll-out of Technica magazine, which continued

HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | FALL 2020

in circulation until 2015 and is now available online.

Long before their 20th anniversary conference in 2008, however, they began to realize how massive the problem they initially set out to address truly was. “As more research came out, it became clear to us that it wasn’t just the Latino and AfricanAmerican populations that were failing to reach parity. It was ALL underserved communities, including Native American, certain Asian communities, and even the white community, particularly in rural and underdeveloped regions of the country.

The national security implications alone were already at crisis levels by the turn of the century.”

So, the organization changed its name from HENAAC to Great Minds in STEM in 2009 to reflect the needs of all the underserved communities nationwide it now addresses. Ray served as CEO of GMiS until 2015 and, together with his team led by current CEO Anna Park, built up a comprehensive range of programs that continue to confront these problems at the K-12, university, faculty, and professional levels.

They’ve also developed and nurtured partnerships with some of America’s largest corporations, sister nonprofit organizations, and federal agencies like NASA and the National Science Foundation.

In 2000, Great Minds in STEM began granting merit-based scholarships to students attending the conference.

With the support of its sponsors, GMiS has awarded more than $4.5 million to over 1,400 students.

"I come from a family of construction workers," said Manuel Retana, a www.hispanicengineer.com

graduate researcher at the NASA Johnson Space Center for Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University.

"Working for NASA wasn't really in the plan."

GMiS helped Retana change his plan.

"Not only does it provide money for tuition; it also gives you the opportunity to network with top people in engineering," he said. "Those types of connections have a huge value, and I've gone from lawn mowing with my family to working in space robotics at NASA." Madeline Salazar, now an aerospace engineer at ABL Space Systems, and a past HENAAC Award winner, said she was in the seventh grade when she

opportunities in the STEM space."

need innovators for the future."

Based on the incredible success of Viva Technology, the Department of Defense, via the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, partnered with Great Minds in STEM to develop and implement the multi-year STEM-UP initiative, a firstof-its-kind, year-round commitment to provide programming across an entire family of community schools.

From 2008 to 2015, STEM-UP exposed more than 92,000 students, parents, educators, and community members to careers and the vast opportunities available to them in science, technology, engineering, and math.

In Salazar's experience, Great Minds in STEM is about Viva Technology, STEM-UP, the GMiS College Bowl, and the HENAAC Conference. "It's building a pipeline, which is what every single organization that is part of a STEM outreach community is hoping to do," she said. That pipeline was first laid down all those years ago by a couple uncertain where that pipeline would lead.

In 2014, Great Minds in STEM acquired MentorNet, a revolutionary mentoring

Ray and Carmela are semi-retired now, but they remain active supporters of Great Minds in STEM’s mission. Ray continues to sit on the GMiS board as chair emeritus, and he serves on the NASA Advisory Council STEM

“I’LL NEVER FORGET WHEN THAT FIRST ISSUE CAME OFF THE PRESS,” CARMELA REMEMBERS FONDLY. “TO SEE LATINOS FINALLY GIVEN THE TREATMENT AND THE PLATFORM THEY DESERVED WAS ONE OF THE PROUDEST MOMENTS OF MY LIFE. WE KNEW WE WERE MAKING DIFFERENCE.” took part in Great Minds in STEM’s Viva Technology program for the first time.

"I actually remember feeling a spark," she said. "I felt so excited because I thought, ‘I could do that; I want to do that.’"

When her AP calculus teacher recommended that she should look at MIT, she hadn't even thought of going to college in another state. "There was a group of people at Great Minds in STEM who spoke of me, the girl at Viva Technology and at MIT. Without having that in my mind, I don't think I would have done as well as I did do in college," she said.

Since 2001, Viva Technology has directly impacted over 140,000 K-12 students, teachers, and parents, across 18 states, from rural Appalachia to urban East Los Angeles. "There's a shortage of engineers and technical talent graduating from the universities in general," said Michael Álvarez, former manager for workforce development, human resources, diversity, and WDDO at the Shell Oil Company. "The Viva Technology program is aligned with our strategy to raise awareness of careers and

www.hispanicengineer.com

network platform that lets college students interact with professional mentors year-round. Through a series of grants from the National Science Foundation, GMiS has partnered with multiple nonprofits to nurture minority students and faculty in the STEM fields.

"There is no magic bullet that will be as effective as continuous attention with the students, the parents, the United States government, industry, and academia," said Juan Rivera, Ph.D., the chairman of the board of GMiS and recently retired engineering executive from Northrop Grumman. Dr. Rivera is also a past HENAAC Award winner.

The problem of building the talent pipeline faces the greatest challenges in the K-12 arena. Dr. Dan Arvizu, a member of the HENAAC Hall of Fame and current chancellor of New Mexico State University, said more than half of the 51 million students in K-12 across America qualify for some level of meal assistance.

"If we are going to have them participate in what this country has to offer, then we're going to have to educate them in a different way," Dr. Arvizu said. "In order to do that, we

Engagement Committee, which reports directly to the NASA Administrator, and the United States STEM Education Advisory Committee for the National Science Foundation.

But their legacy is already set. Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology magazine continues to set the standard for publications in the Latino technical arena, and the HENAAC Awards remain a mark of world-class excellence and prestige for Hispanic engineers and scientists across the country.

“Victor Hugo said, ‘There’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come,’” Carmela remarked in 2013 when she and Ray were inducted into the HENAAC Hall of Fame. “We didn’t know for sure, but we had an idea that the time had come to try to bring forth to our nation the world-class contributions of Hispanic engineers and scientists who had been contributing to the advancement of this country for years. We knew you were out there. You had to be out there. I could feel it in my heart, and we found you. Thank you for letting us tell your stories.” HE

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CONTACT TRACING

CAREER OUTLOOK

NOW HIRING 300,OOO CONTACT TRACERS WHEN ROBERT REDFIELD, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (CDC), SPOKE WITH NPR IN EARLY APRIL, HE SAID HIS AGENCY IS WORKING ON A PLAN TO SAFELY REOPEN THE UNITED STATES. ACCORDING TO REDFIELD, THE INITIATIVE WILL INVOLVE RAMPED-UP TESTING AND “VERY AGGRESSIVE” CONTACT TRACING TO “BLOCK AND TACKLE.” A WASHINGTON, D.C.-BASED GROUP, WHICH AIMS TO HELP AGENCIES EXPAND CONTACT TRACING TEAMS, HAS CALLED CONTACT TRACING

INSIDE > Contact Tracing: Fighting the Novel Coronvirus

THE LARGEST CIVILIAN MOBILIZATION SINCE WORLD WAR II. IN THIS EDITION OF CAREER OUTLOOK, WE LOOK AT WHY THE CDC IS ASKING AMERICA TO TRAIN A LARGE CONTACT TRACER WORKFORCE, AND WHY ONE FORMER CDC DIRECTOR SAID STATE AND LOCAL PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENTS NEED TO HIRE 300,000 PEOPLE FROM THE RANKS OF “COLLEGE GRADUATES, PEOPLE WORKING AT SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCIES, SOCIAL WORKERS, CHILD HEALTH WORKERS, AND PEOPLE

> Contact Tracing:

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CAREER OUTLOOK

COVID-19 PANDEMIC TIMELINE HOW CONTACT TRACING WORKS

According to the CDC, contact tracing has been used for decades. It is a core disease control measure employed by local and state health department personnel and will be a key strategy for preventing further spread of COVID-19.

The CDC recommended that communities across America scale up and train a large contact tracer workforce that will work together across public and private agencies to stop the transmission of COVID-19.

Various job advertisements for contact tracers have called for candidates with a least a four-year high school diploma or its educational equivalent approved by a state’s Department of Education.

What Contact Tracers do in Public Health • Contact tracers trace and monitor contacts of infected people.

• Many make calls from call centers to conduct phone interviews with people diagnosed with COVID-19.

• Contact tracers gather information about a case, elicit the case’s contacts, notify and educate any household/close contacts who are present during the interview, and assess case and household contact needs for services to support isolation/quarantine, including medical care.

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The CDC notes that contact tracing is a specialized skill. It requires people with training, supervision, and access to social and medical support for patients and contacts.

The CDC says that requisite knowledge and skills for contact tracers include: • Understanding the medical terms and principles of exposure, infection, infectious period, potentially infectious interactions, symptoms of disease, pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic infection, and • Most importantly, understanding patient confidentiality.

According to the CDC, six skills that contact tracers need are: 1. Ability to conduct interviews without violating confidentiality (e.g., to those who might overhear their conversations) 2. Excellent interpersonal, cultural sensitivity, and interviewing skills such that they can build and maintain trust with patients and contacts 3. Basic skills of crisis counseling, and the ability to confidently refer patients and contacts for further care, if needed 4. Resourcefulness in locating patients and contacts who may be difficult to reach or reluctant to engage in conversation 5. Understanding of when to refer individuals or situations to medical, social, or supervisory resources 6. Cultural competency appropriate to the local community

have a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university, and two years of full-time satisfactory experience in a public health program, or an associate degree from an accredited college or university, including or supplemented by 12 semester credits in health education or health, social, or biological sciences; and four years of experience. The salary for this position was $65,000.

In New York, job advertisements required: • Public health experience and training • Experience supervising diverse teams • Experience working with different communication styles • Ability to be respectful, sensitive to, and understanding of the diverse perspectives of staff and work with them to resolve differences • Ability to understand the concepts of institutional and structural racism and bias and their impact on underserved and underrepresented communities • Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to interact professionally with people from diverse cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds during a time of crisis and distress. In addition, candidates were required to show a commitment to supporting communities who have experienced systemic oppression and bias (e.g. people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and immigrants).

Candidates for supervisory contact tracer positions were required to

HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | FALL 2020

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INDUSTRY OVERVIEW

BELOW IS A GUIDE TO SOME OF THE ACTIONS FEDERAL AND STATE ENTIES HAVE TAKEN SINCE THE SPREAD OF THE COVID-19 VIRUS IN JANUARY 2020.

JANUARY

The United States declares a public health emergency.

Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said the plan to reopen the United States will involve ramped-up testing, and, “very aggressive” contact tracing to “block and tackle.”

By mid-April, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced an initiative aimed at speeding innovation, development, and commercialization of COVID-19 testing technologies.

During the last week of April, the New York City mayor’s office, in partnership with a nonprofit organization announced 1,000 contact tracer positions.

At the end of April, the CDC published a document highlighting the basic principles of contact tracing.

FEBRUARY

MARCH

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March 16 — The first participant received the investigational vaccine designed to protect against COVID-19 at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) in Seattle.

APRIL May 18 — Moderna, Inc. announced positive interim clinical data of mRNA1273.

MAY

JUNE

JULY Aug 16 — Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) announced the launch of a program that will provide regular COVID-19 testing and contact tracing to school staff, students and their families.

First person in the United States with a confirmed case of the 2019 novel coronavirus.

AUGUST

May 21 — The Trump administration and AstraZeneca announce a collaboration to speed development of a COVID-19 vaccine called AZD1222.

June 16 — HHS Announces COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Will Be Free for Some.

July 22 — Dr. Robert R. Redfield statement on SARSCoV-2 infections says CDC estimates that there were 10 times more cases than reported from the period where they have been examining antibody data: March through May.

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CAREER OUTLOOK

Contact Tracing:

America Needs ‘an Army of 300,000 People’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Robert Redfield has called for “substantial expansion of public health fieldworkers” to undertake aggressive contact tracing. He called the campaign “block and tackle.” Other experts have said state and local governments will have to train people and have a system that works. In this section, we look at where contact tracing jobs will be, what employment options will look like for people entering this field, skills/focus areas/majors/trades people will need to have/acquire in order to obtain these jobs, and starting salaries.

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JOB HORIZON

F

ormer CDC director Tom Frieden told STAT that America needs “an army of 300,000 people.”

STAT is a magazine focused on health, medicine, life sciences, and the business of making medicines. It provides insights on changes in the life science industry.

During the last week of April, the New York City mayor’s office, in partnership with a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the health and well-being of all New Yorkers, announced new contact tracer positions. The City was looking to hire 1,000 people by the end of May with an immediate start date.

On May 1, Ventris Gibson, director of the Washington, D.C. Department of Human Resources, said that its 900 Contact Trace Force jobs involve speaking remotely with those who have had the virus and others who have come into close contact with those who have had it.

Various job advertisements for contact tracers have called for candidates with a least a four-year high school diploma or its educational equivalent approved by a state’s Department of Education.

Across the country, contact tracer job advertisements called for people with public health backgrounds to investigate and trace COVID-19 cases and contacts. According to the scope of work, job requirements, salary, benefits, and application guidelines for New York, candidates with health-related professional experience or public health training were preferred.

By April 28, the St. Louis County Department of Public Health, which was hiring, training, and supervising a contact tracing team across St. Louis County in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, had stopped accepting applications.

With a projected 300,000 contact tracer jobs available, we took a look at what contact tracers do in public health systems around the country.

Contact tracers trace and monitor contacts of infected people. Many make calls from call centers to conduct phone interviews with people diagnosed with COVID-19. Contact tracers gather information about a case, elicit the case’s contacts, notify and educate any household/close contacts who are www.hispanicengineer.com

present during the interview, and assess case and household contact needs for services to support isolation/quarantine, including medical care.

The CDC notes that contact tracing is a specialized skill. It requires people with training, supervision, and access to social and medical support for patients and contacts. The CDC says that requisite knowledge and skills for contact tracers include understanding the medical terms and principles of exposure, infection, infectious period, potentially infectious interactions, symptoms of disease, pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic infection, and most importantly, understanding patient confidentiality.

With a projected 300,000 contact tracer jobs available, we took a look at what contact tracers do in public health systems around the country.

According to the CDC, six skills that contact tracers need are: • Ability to conduct interviews without violating confidentiality (e.g., to those who might overhear their conversations) • Excellent interpersonal, cultural sensitivity, and interviewing skills such that they can build and maintain trust with patients and contacts • Basic skills of crisis counseling, and the ability to confidently refer patients and contacts for further care, if needed • Resourcefulness in locating patients and contacts who may be difficult to reach or reluctant to engage in conversation • Understanding of when to refer individuals or situations to medical, social, or supervisory resources

by Alfred Lewis editors@ccgmag.com

• Cultural competency appropriate to the local community

Candidates for supervisory contact tracer positions were required to have a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university, and two years of full-time satisfactory experience in a public health program, or an associate degree from an accredited college or university, including or supplemented by 12 semester credits in health education or health, social, or biological sciences, and four years of experience. The salary for this position was $65,000.

In New York, job advertisements required: • Public health experience and training • Experience supervising diverse teams • Experience working with different communication styles • Ability to be respectful, sensitive to, and understanding of the diverse perspectives of staff and work with them to resolve differences • Ability to understand the concepts of institutional and structural racism and bias and their impact on underserved and underrepresented communities • Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to interact professionally with people from diverse cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds during a time of crisis and distress In addition, candidates were required to show a commitment to supporting communities who have experienced systemic oppression and bias (e.g. people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and immigrants).

The World Health Organization says people who closely watch contacts after exposure to an infected person, help the contacts to get care and treatment, and prevent further transmission of the virus perform a monitoring process called contact tracing, which can be broken down into three basic steps: 1. Contact identification 2. Contact listing 3. Contact follow-up HE

HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | FALL 2020

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CAREER OUTLOOK

Now Hiring

Contact Tracers with Public Health Experience

By 2060,

the Hispanic/Latino population in the United States is estimated to reach 119 million. Researchers have found that within this diverse population (by country of origin, ancestry, and race) there are different incidences of disease and mortality rates. Recently, Rogelio Saenz, a professor in the Department of Demography at the University of Texas at San Antonio and co-author of

36

the book Latinos in the United States: Diversity and Change, has published some of the most comprehensive analysis on COVID-19 data.

According to Saenz, although infection cases and deaths have missing information on Hispanic/Latino identification, the available data shows that Latinos are overrepresented among people infected with the COVID-19 virus relative to their share in the population in 29 of the 35 states that report Latino

HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | FALL 2020

cases.

Of the 29 states that provide data on COVID-19 deaths for Latinos, only one (New York) has greater Latino fatalities compared to their presence in the population. Latinos and Blacks have death rates that are approximately twice as high as that of whites in New York City, more than twice as high in Utah, and 3.5 times higher in the case of Latinos and more than four times higher in the case of Blacks in California. A

www.hispanicengineer.com

PEOPLE TO KNOW

common theme in the message from public health leaders is the need to tamp down the COVID-19 outbreak before the flu season.

In April, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health published a report called the National Plan to Enable Comprehensive COVID-19 Case Finding and Contact Tracing in the US. The report said that until a COVID-19 vaccine is available, management of www.hispanicengineer.com

the COVID-19 pandemic will rely on traditional public health methods for contact tracing, like those methods used for tuberculosis and sexually transmitted infections across the country every day.

Also, in April, an open letter from public health leaders said there have been a variety of estimates of how much the contact tracing workforce under state and local management needs to expand to help control COVID-19. They

estimated the necessary contact tracing workforce needs to be expanded by 180,000 until a safe, effective vaccine is on the market. The report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security recommended more than 265,000 contact tracers in the United States.

The report also said while technology methods used by Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea may be difficult to replicate in the U.S. because of privacy

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CAREER OUTLOOK

protections, New Zealand and Iceland’s approach could be achievable with a large enough contact tracing workforce.

How will contact tracing for COVID-19 work?

The United States could roll out a mobile contact tracing application that could capture contacts and record their self-reported symptoms. Following the Iceland and Singapore models, with user permission, an app could also record and store user location for contact tracing and tracking purposes.

In addition, a national electronic platform for contact tracing could be developed and potentially synced with existing electronic health records.

Required Skills and Training According to the Bloomberg School of Public Health, contact tracing skills can easily be taught. Advanced degrees are not required (a high school-level education suffices), and no previous public health education is necessary— other than the just-in-time training and management that can be provided.

The aim of contact tracing is to contact every person diagnosed with COVID-19, gather their contacts, and proceed to then get in touch with every contact discovered. The World Health Organization recommended that contact tracers have basic analytical skills and the necessary skills to: • Assess relevant symptoms • Investigate and follow up with contacts • Work remotely and conduct contact tracing via phone or using other technologies In cases where contact tracers need to go to people’s homes, those individuals should be provided with training and personal protective equipment to mitigate risk of infection.

Massachusetts, one of the first states to announce plans to hire an additional 1,000 individuals to conduct contact tracing activities, worked with the aid of Partners in Health. Over the past couple of weeks, Partners in Health Massachusetts received 15,000 applications for 1,000 positions. Dr. Joia Mukerjee told Marketplace that training takes just a few days and can be 38

completed online with basic technology know-how and strong people skills.

Basic training modules on the principles and basics of COVID-19 are now being created for widespread use by organizations such as the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

While social distancing remains in place, online training can begin to build the workforce.

On April 22, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a plan to train up to 10,000 contact tracers in California. The state is establishing a contact tracing workforce by surveying counties on their capacity, developing a statewide training academy, and training 10,000 public health connectors to conduct contact tracing.

PEOPLE TO KNOW Dr. Alicia Fernandez is a professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and a general internist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General. At UCSF, Dr. Fernandez has also served as leader in the Differences Matter initiative for health equity since 2015. Her expertise is in health and healthcare disparities, with a focus on Latino health, immigrant health, and language barriers. Dr. Fernandez is an active mentor of students, residents, fellows, and faculty. A member of the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators, she received the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Professorship for Humanism in Medicine (2009–2013).

She directs an academic career and research training program for students focused on health disparities research. Dr. Fernandez has served as an adviser to many organizations on health disparities-related projects, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the California Endowment, the National Quality Forum, the Commonwealth Fund, the American Medical Association, and the American Board of Internal Medicine. Since 2014, Dr. Fernandez has served on the Board of Governors of the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the National Academy of Science Roundtable on Health Literacy.

Amelie G. Ramirez has worked as a public health practitioner for more than 30 years. She has developed research models to improve Latino

HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | FALL 2020

health. Currently, she directs Salud America, a multimedia program.

The program helps its network of 200,000 community and school leaders to drive healthy policy and system changes. These initiatives promote health equity and support for Latino families. Ramirez has trained/mentored more than 300 Latinos in health fields. She earned a Master of Public Health and a Doctor of Public Health from The University of Texas (UT) Health Science Center at the Houston School of Public Health.

While serving as professor and chair of the Department of Population Health Sciences at UT Health San Antonio, she is also director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio. She also leads Éxito! training. The education and leadership program help master’s-level students and professionals pursue a doctoral degree and a career in cancer research. In Texas, she is on the San Antonio Mayor’s Fitness Council and is board president of the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas. Her honors recognition includes a 2007 election to the National Academy of Medicine and a 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award in health equity from the Society of Behavioral Medicine.

Recognized as a leader in Latino health care and disparities research, Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D., built a career at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) where he practiced primary care general internal medicine for 37 years. He held many leadership positions at UCSF, including director of the UCSF Medical Effectiveness Research Center for Diverse Populations, which addresses issues for African Americans, Asians, and Latinos in the areas of cancer, cardiovascular disease, aging, and reproductive health. As director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), Dr. Pérez-Stable oversees a budget of $335.8 million to advance the science of minority health and health disparities. NIMHD is the lead organization at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for planning, reviewing, coordinating, and evaluating minority health and health disparities research activities conducted by NIH www.hispanicengineer.com

PEOPLE TO KNOW

TOP

Pharmacy Chains CVS Pharmacy Walgreens Walmart Stores Inc. Rite Aid Corporation Cardinal Health Inc.

Average Salaries for Epidemiologists

(Source: 15 BEST JOBS IN EPIDEMIOLOGY MPH Online, epidemiology-careers) » Average salary for a research epidemiologist is around $90,500 per year. » Average salary for an epidemiologist working in a government position is around $69,600 per year. » A climate health epidemiologist earns an average salary of roughly $50,000 per year. » The salary for an epidemiologist in clinical trial research is around $70,000 per year. » A disaster epidemiologist, who investigates the effects of a disaster on a population’s health, can expect a salary of roughly $70,000 per year. » A salary for an epidemiology investigator, who identifies the cause of a disease or addresses the risk factors associated with a condition, averages around $75,000 per year, though starting salaries are slightly lower than average at roughly $40,000 per year.

Institutes and Centers. NIMHD also promotes diversity in the biomedical workforce, supports research capacity at institutions serving disparity populations, and promotes information dissemination through regular electronic communications, public education outreach, and scientific presentations. Dr. Pérez-Stable's research interests have centered on improving the health of racial and ethnic minorities and underserved populations, advancing patientcentered care, improving cross-cultural communication skills among health care professionals, and promoting diversity in the biomedical research workforce.

Dr. Anna María Nápoles assumed the position of scientific director of the Intramural Research Program at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities in 2017.

Prior to that, she was a behavioral epidemiologist in the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) for 27 years and served as director of the UCSF Center for Aging in Diverse Communities.

Her work seeks to advance research methods for engagement of diverse communities in clinical research. These studies address the effectiveness of recruitment and retention methods, measurement issues when comparing self-reported health measures across diverse ethnic groups, development of survey measures to test mechanisms that might explain disparities, and critical reviews of methods for translation of evidence-based programs into ethnically diverse communities.

Prior to joining the National Institutes www.hispanicengineer.com

» An epidemiology manager or administrator takes on a leadership role within a medical facility or an institution and may need a higher level of education than the average epidemiologist. » An epidemiology professor can expect to make an average of $64,000 per year. » A field epidemiologist can expect to earn around $68,000 per year. » A hospital epidemiologist makes an average income of around $69,600 per year. » The average salary for an infection preventionist or infection control epidemiologist is around $98,000 per year. » A molecular epidemiologist can expect a median salary of roughly $69,600 per year. » The role of a pharmaceutical epidemiologist is to work with pharmaceutical companies to make decisions about the drugs developed for the population. A pharmaceutical epidemiologist makes an average salary of roughly $69,000 per year.

of Health (NIH), Rolando Barajas worked as the project coordinator for a public health surveillance resource for the city of Flint, MI through Michigan State University’s Flint Center for Health Equity Solutions. His work focused on community-based participatory research due to the social climate of Flint following the water crisis. Barajas is now a fellow in the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program's (EGRP) Genomic Epidemiology Branch (GEB). In this capacity, he assists with the development and evaluation of scientific initiatives and literature reviews for areas relevant to EGRP and GEB, including health disparities, and utilization of sequencing and existing genomic and epidemiologic datasets for population-based cancer research. While completing his M.P.H. in epidemiology from the University of California, San Diego, he worked as a clinical research coordinator at the UCSD Moores Cancer Center

Neuro-oncology clinical trials team. His research interests include evaluating cancer health disparities among minority groups, genetic cancer risk susceptibility and how it is impacted by the environment, and genetic differences within underserved populations that could improve treatment responses.

Dr. Joanne Elena is an epidemiologist and program director in the Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Branch of the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Dr. Elena holds adjunct appointments to the Health Behaviors Research Branch, DCCPS and Nutrition Epidemiology Branch, and the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics.

She completed her Ph.D. in nutritional epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her M.P.H. at

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CAREER

PEOPLE TO KNOW

OUTLOOK

the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

She is responsible for developing, managing, and promoting a research portfolio of grants focused on diet and lifestyle factors that influence cancer progression, recurrence and survival, and the development of second primary cancers. She is also involved in optimizing the use and design of cohort studies, incorporating new technologies to assess exposures and outcomes, and maximizing the use of existing data, and she manages a funding announcement that supports infrastructure needs for large cohort studies.

Dr. Scarlett Lin Gomez is an epidemiologist with research interests in the role of social determinants of health, including race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, immigration status, sociocultural factors, and neighborhood contextual characteristics on health outcomes.

She is also director of the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry, a part of the California Cancer Registry and the NCI Surveillance Epidemiology End Results (SEER) Program. She has contributed surveillance data regarding cancer incidence and outcome

In 2019, MPH Online, which focuses on public health programs across the country, put together its top programs for 2019. Its rankings are based on programs it found provided quality, affordability, and opportunity. patterns and trends for distinct AsianAmerican, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander and Hispanic ethnic groups, as well as cancer patterns by nativity status and neighborhood characteristics. She developed the California Neighborhoods Data System, a compilation of small-area level data on social and built environment characteristics and has used this data in more than a dozen funded studies to evaluate the impact of social and built neighborhood environment factors on disease outcomes. HE

1. University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health 2. University of Washington School Of Public Health 3. University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health 4. UCLA Fielding School of Public Health 5. University of Minnesota 6. Texas A&M University Health Science Center 7. George Washington University— Milken Institute School of Public Health 8. Harvard University Chan School of Public Health 9. University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Applied Health Sciences at UIC 10. Emory University—Rollins School of Public Health 11. Columbia University—Mailman School of Public Health 12. University of South Florida 13. USF College of Public Health 14. University of Michigan 15. The University of Maryland, College Park 16. The University of Iowa College of Public Health 17. Johns Hopkins University— Bloomberg School of Public Health 18. Yale University 19. Saint Louis University—College of Public Health and Social Justice 20. University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health

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21. The University at Albany—School of Public Health 22. UT Health Science Center at Houston 23. University of Massachusetts, Amherst 24. Drexel University—Dornsife School of Public Health 25. University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health 26. Boston University

Master of public health programs focus on: • Biostatistics • Epidemiology • Health policy and management • Population or community health

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