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Erika Tatiana Camacho    

Dr. Erika T. Camacho, student of the late Jaime Escalante, is a dynamic motivational speaker about her path, research, and STEM education.

Dr. Erika T. Camacho grew up in East Los Angeles and was taught by the great Calculus teacher Jaime Escalante.  She earned her B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from Wellesley College and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University. She has held appointments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the 2013-2014 MLK Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics, at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a researcher, and Loyola Marymount University as tenure-track faculty. Dr. Camacho is currently an Associate Professor at Arizona State University (ASU). She co-founded the Applied Mathematical Sciences Summer Institute (AMSSI) and co-directed various summer programs dedicated to the recruitment of women, underrepresented minorities, and those that might not otherwise have the opportunity.  She is an inspirational and dynamic speaker on her life path and the importance of STEM education and is an equally passionate speaker about her research.

Dr. Camacho published the first set of mathematical models addressing photoreceptor degeneration. While experimental physiologists have been working on this area for decades, Dr. Camacho has provided a new framework through which experimentalists can examine retina degeneration. Her work examines the mechanisms and interactions of photoreceptors that are critical to their functionality and viability with the ultimate goals of preventing blindness. Her work uses in silico experiments to computationally test or suggest hypotheses, discover new (unknown) interactions and principles that drive the system dynamics, and provide a platform for guiding experiments and data analysis. 

 She has been profiled and featured in multiple media outlets including Univision Nightly Spanish News in a two-part segment entitled “Erika Camacho’s Inspirational Story”, the SIAM News “The Intersecting Lives of Two Mathematicians in East L.A.”, in three SACNAS News Feature Articles “Leadership”, “Building Confidence”, and “Fixing the Leaky Faucet: A Discussion on Women of Color in STEM with Children”, Latino Perspectives Magazine “Camacho stands and delivers”, and Voces magazine “I am the American Dream: Erika Tatiana Camacho, Ph.D.”. She has been interviewed on CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News as part of a segment in honor of her high school teacher Jaime Escalante, in PBS Arizona Horizonte for her HWC Leadership Award, and on NPR’s KJZZ about the importance of Latinas in STEM careers.

Her leadership, scholarship, and mentoring have won her many national and regional recognition including the SACNAS Distinguished Undergraduate Mentoring Award, the Hispanic Women Corporation National Latina Leadership Award, one of 12 Emerging Scholars by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, one of the 40 Hispanic Leaders Under 40 Award, the Victoria Foundation Higher Education Outstanding STEM Award, the ASU Faculty Women’s Association Outstanding Faculty Mentoring Award, and many more.

She truly believes that education is what allows individuals to follow their passion, excel even when the odds against this are many, and realize their dreams. In her own words, "STEM education is what allows us to shape and mold our lives and that of future generations to come. It is the biggest equalizer of life.” 

Speech Topics

Meta-analysis Perspectives on Interdisciplinary and Applied Learning, Crossing Boundaries: Transforming STEM Education

Preparing all students to address the social, environmental, health, and geopolitical issues of their time requires multifaceted understandings in STEM fields and their relationships with the humanities.  One cannot address public health or climate change without deep knowledge in science, economics, social justice, geography, history, and current political structures.  And addressing these issues also requires a STEM literate public able to make wise personal, professional, and civic-minded decisions with agency for the common good.  Dr. Camacho explores the ways in which interdisciplinary and applied learning are helping educators and students make the connections necessary to address complex problems, with particular emphasis on advancing STEM learning for underrepresented students. 

Intentional and Strategic Mentoring

Good mentoring is not an organic process that just happens and evolves on its own without any plan or objectives. Good mentoring is intentional, strategic, and non-static. Becoming a good mentor requires being fully conscious of who we are and who are the individuals we are mentoring/serving, including understanding their upbringing, challenges, goals, and potential. It also requires constant training and practice. Through mentoring we will transform our mentees as much as they will transform us. Thus, we have to be intentional in what we do in order to make this transformation positive and make the process of mentoring sustainable and optimal for all parties involved. In this interactive presentation, Dr. Camacho shares some ways in which you can achieve this. She addresses some of the challenges and key elements of being a good mentor. Dr. Camacho shares her experiences and insights on successful mentoring and gains at all levels from student to postdoc to faculty or professional. She gives some insight into how we can create a stronger research and teaching agenda through mentoring, and enhance the students’ learning experience and our ability to transform our environment

It Takes a Village to Create a Woman of Color in STEM

Increasing the number of women of color in the mathematical sciences is a joint effort that requires input from multiple vantage points. There have been a number of efforts over the years to encourage minority women to enter STEM careers. Nevertheless, the number of minority women still remains quite small. Those of us occupying the race?gender intersection face unique circumstances and challenges as students and faculty/professionals. In this presentation Dr. Camacho will discuss what kind of "village" raised her up as a mathematician and STEM professional. She will share with you her experiences including the pitfalls she had to overcome to thrive in STEM and in the professoriate. This presentation will provide her personal perspective on the following topics: What are the necessary conditions for motivating a young woman of color to pursue a career in mathematics? What are the ingredients of a new model of nurturance and growth? In particular, who are the people and partnerships needed to foster careers in these fields that are personally fulfilling and professionally significant?

Stranger in a Strange Land: How I Found My Place in Academia

Having grown up in East Los Angeles, California, Dr. Erika Camacho understands many of the struggles that students and women of color must endure in striving to attain their academic and professional goals. Dr. Camacho will be sharing her life experiences and the challenges she had to overcome to help her achieve her personal and professional goals. She will share stories about the key individuals and decisions that contributed to her success and transformation, including highlights of her research and the adversities she faced. Dr. Camacho will also share her passion for social activism and continual drive to transform the world of academia and strengthen our communities. Her life story is full of insights and lessons of empowerment for all. 

Reflections and insights on the joys and challenges of the professoriate

Studies indicate that faculty of color often feel marginalized and unappreciated at majority institutions. They may find that their values and interests conflict with the norms of these institutions. Yet most minority faculty members are satisfied with their choice of an academic career and have developed the strategies necessary to survive and thrive. Dr. Camacho reflects on her experiences and share insights on the joys as well as the continuing challenges of life in the professoriate.

Mathematical Models of the Retina and In Silico Experiments: Shedding Light on Vision Loss

Mathematical modeling has been used to study diverse biological topics ranging from protein folding to cell interactions to interacting populations of humans but has only recently been used to study the physiology of the eye.  In recent years, computer (in silico) experiments have given researchers invaluable insights and in some cases have re-directed experimental research and theory.  In this talk I will give a brief overview of the relevant physiology of the eye as it pertains to Retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a group of inherited degenerative eye diseases that characterized by the premature death of both rod and cone photoreceptors often resulting in total blindness. With mathematics and in silico experiments, we explore the experimentally observed results highlighting the delicate balance between the availability of nutrients and the rates of shedding and renewal of photoreceptors needed for a normal functioning retina.  This work provides a framework for future physiological investigations potentially leading to long-term targeted multi-faceted interventions and therapies dependent on the particular stage and subtype of RP under consideration.  The mathematics presented will be accessible to an undergraduate math audience and the biology will be at the level of a novice (and with a little help from Dr. Seuss)

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Solidifying our understanding of medical and physiological challenges as a result of new technologies and ingenuity.

Scholars are frequently encouraged to make use of emerging technologies: from social media that facilitate virtually instantaneous critical debate about political events to social networking sites that accompany protest movements. Academic publishing is being transformed by an increasingly vast array of online journals and blogs. Meanwhile, online archives and databases have helped draw scholarly communities, from around the world, closer together. Does technology move in a single direction, as the arc of these developments appears to suggest, or do these apparatuses complicate the scholarly enterprise in unforeseen ways? Are some disciplines inherently more or less suited to digital technologies for research and instruction? If so, which ones and on which grounds? Is the prominent role of technology in research and teaching merely a new development, or should we examine recent trends through challenges that have gripped earlier epochs of academic inquiry? In terms of social and political impact, we query whether technology is truly providing greater access to higher education for underserved and underrepresented communities, as is often claimed. Does technology reduce or reinforce privileged access to education? How does increased emphasis on quantifiable input from student evaluations influences the quest to engage students in novel ways? As web-based platforms for academic publishing increase, how will faculty adapt criteria for peer review as well as protocols for hiring and tenuring faculty? Dr. Camacho will explore some of these questions and much more.

Modeling Photoreceptor Death and Rescue

Mathematical modeling has been used to study diverse biological topics ranging from protein folding to cell interactions to interacting populations of humans but has only recently been used to study retina degeneration. Computer (in silico) experiments in this area have given researchers invaluable insights and in some cases re-directed experimental research and theory. This talk will provide a brief overview of the relevant physiology of the eye as it pertains to photoreceptor degeneration. We will explore the experimentally observed photoreceptor death and rescue in retinal degeneration and provide a framework for future physiological investigations and potential ways to circumvent blindness using in silico experiments together with differential equations, control theory, and uncertainty and sensitivity analysis. Our work highlights the delicate balance between the availability of nutrients, and photoreceptors’ energy uptake and consumption needed for a normal functioning retina.

Resilience, tenacity, and hard work: My story, your future, and our responsibility to create a strong quantitative community.

Faced by rapidly accelerating social, environmental, and medical/health challenges there is an urgent need to create a strong quantitative workforce. Addressing these challenges requires intense, aggressive, and innovative efforts at every level. As students, we need to work very hard, have tenacity, and be resilient so that we never give up, take every opportunity in our path, and ensure that we are educating ourselves as best as possible and becoming very quantitative regardless of our academic focus. As educators and members of a larger community we need to create an environment where our students can be more quantitative and thrive. We need to entice and recruit our students to scientific careers and successfully retain them. We need to create a quantitative proficient student population capable of contributing in a significant way to our solution. We all have an important role in the attainment of economic growth and global competiveness of our nation. In this talk Dr. Camacho provides insights into these challenges through her story, what the story of our students should be if we are to address these challenges, and what we as a community need to do to create a successful story for our students and our nation.

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