Campus News

By Sara Myers, Digital Media & Communications Specialist

RU Student Faith Gomez was mentored by Dr. Filiz Dik, Dr. Deepshikha Shukla, and others in the SMN (Science, Math & Nursing) College and was awarded a $2,500 grant to create a STEM camp for middle school girls called “InnovateHer.” 

The event will be held tentatively this fall 2024 and include 30 girls from local middle schools. 

Gomez is majoring in biochemistry and minoring in gender studies. 

“Despite coming in on a grant for women in STEM I didn’t see a lot of outreach specifically for women in STEM even though we’re still underrepresented in the professional space,” Gomez said. “As a historically women’s college, I thought that it might be beneficial both for our history and for outreach purposes to create a more women-centric event, for STEM specifically.”

She had the idea for the camp for a while but it finally came to fruition when she started looking for grants when she was working on her capstone project. 

“I want the activities to be focused on what the mentor is doing with their career in STEM,” she said. “For example, there’s a student who wants to get a master’s in forensic chemistry and she got into chemistry programs. I want her to feel like she can do a fingerprinting experiment and she can talk about how she found chemistry as a viable career path and what they have in Rockford.”

Gomez graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.S. in Biochemistry in May 2024. 

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This article is from the 2023-2024 issue of Catalyst.