HCC STEM Club students earned honors during Fall semester

Jan 20, 2015

STEM Clubs around the district are gearing up for another very active semester.

Last Fall, the Science Club at Central College hosted a very successful 4th Annual STEM Research Symposium. The highlight of the conference was the key note address from Dr. Maia Larios-Sanz from the University of Saint Thomas. He spoke about a very topical subject: Ebola and Emerging Diseases. This excellent and engaging presentation stimulated much discussion and questions from the students present. In addition to Dr. Larios’ presentation, the day-long event included Student Oral and Poster presentations, Student “hands on” Chemistry demonstrations, Student Learning Enhancement presentations from Pearson Publishers and Science Challenge Competitions for prizes. The conference was very well-attended by students, faculty and administration and feedback from the students on this event was extremely positive.

At Northwest College, The National Honor Society Beta Beta Beta held an informative Health Fair on Oct. 30. Currently in its 13th year at HCC, the Honor Society also inducted 18 new members at its Annual Induction Ceremony; Northwest Dean of Academic Development, Dr. Jerome Drain was on hand to give a well-received keynote address. Individual STEM Club students also had a banner semester. STEM Club faculty sponsors could not be any prouder. Three HCC students (David Le, Navish Bosquez and Erisa Hysi) completed prestigious NSF REU summer internships at Rice University, while HCC students Kourtney West and Barabara Nassif completed Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program (MSEIP) internships, also at Rice University. Several of these students also presented posters at the annual Rice University poster completion.

HCC students Darin Peacock and Anthony Obi were recognized at the annual Health and Medical Science Luncheon with a $1,000 scholarship from the West Houston Chamber of Commerce.

Finally, HCC student Nabeel Javed (now an Aggie at Texas A&M in College Station), was the winner of the poster presentation competition at the 86th National Technology Association conference in Cleveland Ohio on September 24-26. His poster was entitled "Got GMO?" and investigated the presence of Genetically Modified Organisms in everyday grocery store foods. The original research was done in collaboration with fellow STEM club students Chimobi Emukah, Anthony Obi and Darin Peacock.