Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee is a technical university located in Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India. It is the oldest engineering institution in India, and was founded as the College of Civil Engineering in British India in 1847 by the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, James Thomason, in order to train officers and surveyors employed in the construction of the Ganges Canal. In 1854, after the completion of the canal and Thomason's death, it was renamed the Thomason College of Civil Engineering by Proby Cautley, the designer and projector of the canal. It was renamed University of Roorkee in 1949, and again renamed IIT Roorkee in 2001. The institution has 22 academic departments covering Engineering, Applied Sciences, Humanities & Social Sciences and Management programs with an emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.
The Osage Nation is a Midwestern American tribe of the Great Plains. The tribe developed in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys around 700 B.C. along with other groups of its language family. They migrated west after the 17th century, settling near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, as a result of Iroquois expansion into the Ohio Country in the aftermath of the Beaver Wars.
The Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) is an annual science fair in the United States. It is owned and administered by the Society for Science, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. Each May, more than 1800 students from roughly 75 countries and territories compete in the fair for scholarships, tuition grants, internships, scientific field trips and the grand prizes, including one $75,000 and two $50,000 college scholarships. All prizes together amount to over $8,000,000. Two major awards ceremonies are the Special Awards Organization Presentation and the Grand Awards Ceremony. The International Science and Engineering Fair was founded in 1950 by Science Service and was sponsored by Intel from 1997 to 2019. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals became the title sponsor for ISEF in 2020, but the event was cancelled that year and replaced with an online version due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 ISEF was a fully virtual event while 2022 was held online and in-person in Atlanta, GA, and 2023 was in person in Dallas, TX. The 2024 ISEF will be held in person in Los Angeles, CA.
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of education policy or curriculum choices in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns, and immigration policy, with regard to admitting foreign students and tech workers.
Bacone College, formerly Bacone Indian University, is a Private college in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Founded in 1880 as the Indian University by missionary Almon C. Bacone, it was originally affiliated with the mission arm of what is now American Baptist Churches USA. Renamed as Bacone College in the early 20th century, it is the oldest continuously operated institution of higher education in Oklahoma. The liberal arts college has had strong historic ties to several tribal nations, including the Muscogee and Cherokee. The Bacone College Historic District has been on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Muskogee County, Oklahoma since 2014.
Indian Institute of Technology Madras is a public technical university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of the eight public Institutes of Eminence of India. As one of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), IIT Madras is also recognized as an Institute of National Importance.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a Potawatomi botanist, author, and the director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF).
Subra Suresh is an Indian-born American engineer, materials scientist, and academic leader. He is currently Professor at Large at Brown University and Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Dean of the School of Engineering at MIT from 2007 to 2010 before being appointed as Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) by Barack Obama, where he served from 2010 to 2013. He was the president of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) from 2013 to 2017. Between 2018 and 2022, he was the fourth President of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU), where he is also the inaugural Distinguished University Professor.
Mary Golda Ross was the first Native American female engineer. She was also the first female engineer in the history of the Lockheed Corporation. She worked at Lockheed from 1942 until her retirement in 1973, where she was best remembered for her work on aerospace design. She was one of the 40 founding engineers of the renowned and highly secretive Skunk Works project while at Lockheed Corporation. Throughout her life, Ross was dedicated to the advancement of young women and Native Americans in STEM fields.Ten years after her death, in 2018, Ross was chosen to be depicted on the 2019 Native American $1 Coin by the U.S. Mint celebrating Native Americans in the space program.
Nancy Beth Jackson was an American chemist. She did energy research on heterogeneous catalysis and the development of alternative fuels. She also worked in the field of chemical nonproliferation, educating chemical professionals on the importance of safe and secure chemical practice in research, teaching and business, in an effort to prevent the misuse of chemicals as "weapons, poisons, explosives or environmental pollutants". She was the first implementer in developing the international Chemical Security Engagement Program. She was active in promoting diversity in STEM fields. She was president of the American Chemical Society in 2011, leading the organization during the International Year of Chemistry. In 2012, she was honored with the AAAS Award for Science Diplomacy.
The Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1973. It is the largest multicultural STEM diversity organization in the United States, with a mission to advance the success of Chicano, Hispanic, and Native American students in obtaining advanced degrees, careers, leadership positions, and equality in the STEM field. It serves a community of over 20,000 members and has 118 student and professional chapters on college campuses across the United States and its territories.
Jennifer McLoud-Mann is an American mathematician known for her 2015 discovery, with Casey Mann and undergraduate student David Von Derau, of the 15th and last class of convex pentagons to tile the plane. She is a professor of mathematics at the University of Washington Bothell, where she is currently the Vice Dean of Curriculum & Instruction of the School of STEM. Beyond tiling, her research interests include knot theory and combinatorics.
Carol Gardipe is an American geologist, whose career has included positions with the United States Geological Survey (USGS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and roles in higher education as a professor and administrator. She is one of the seven founders of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES).
Kenneth D. Ridgway is a professor at Purdue University's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. He has been recognized by the Geological Society of America with the Randolph W. "Bill" and Cecile T. Bromery Award for Minorities. His research interests include sedimentary geology, basin analysis, tectonics, and petroleum geology. Ridgway identifies as a Lenape (Delaware) Indian and has been actively contributing to promoting minority student participation in the earth sciences through professional societies such as the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), and the American Geological Institute (AGI).
Karletta Chief is a Diné hydrologist, best known for her work to address environmental pollution on the Navajo Nation and increase the participation of Native Americans in STEM.
Aaron Yazzie is a Diné (Navajo) mechanical engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His work involves planetary sample acquisition and handling. He has worked on the Mars Science Laboratory, InSight, and Mars 2020 missions.
Jerry Chris Elliott High Eagle is a physicist and was one of the first Native Americans who worked at NASA. He is most known for his contributions as the lead retrofire officer during Apollo 13, where his actions saved the lives of the three astronauts on board. Elliott's work awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor awarded by the President of the United States.
Lydia L. Jennings is a Native American soil microbiologist and environmental scientist. Her research interests are soil health, environmental remediation, indigenous science, mining policy, and environmental data ownership by tribal nations. She works with organizations initiatives that support Indigenous geoscientists and the integration of geoscience with Indigenous knowledge. Her work is featured in the 2020 documentary Run to Be Visible, produced by Patagonia.
Cara Cowan Watts is a Cherokee Nation politician. She served on the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council from 2003 to 2015 and was a candidate for Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation in the 2023 Cherokee Nation principal chief election.
