On Thursday May 3rd, 2012, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation hosted the Latinos on Fast Track (LOFT) STEM Leadership Symposium at Santa Clara University in partnership with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) Foundation.
Local high school and college students in the Silicon Valley enjoyed an exciting evening to network with young and experienced professionals in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) from various Fortune 500 companies and learned about the diverse career opportunities available within the STEM industry.
The symposium included a dynamic and exclusive leadership training led by the U.S. Army designed to help student leaders define their role within their respective organizations, and encourage them to seek out leadership roles in their schools and communities.
Diana Albarran Chicas, Sr. Antenna Program Manager at Space Systems/Local and SHPE member, joined a panel of STEM professional leaders discussing the different career paths and resources available for Latinos to enter the STEM fields. Diana shared her unique path becoming an engineer and the first member in her family to go to college and attending one of the most prestigious universities, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
On behalf of the SHPE Foundation, David Silva, co-president of the SHPE Silicon Valley professional chapter, gave opening remarks welcoming the students and professionals to the LOFT STEM Leadership Symposium and emphasized SHPE’s commitment to promoting and encouraging more young Latinos to pursue STEM careers.
Pictures from the event are available at http://www.facebook.com/hispanicheritage/photos and https://picasaweb.google.com/shpesiliconvalleyphotos/2012SantaClaraLOFTSTEMLeadershipSymposium