Education standouts
On May 13, Celeste Lucretia Baca graduated with a bachelor’s degree in social work, with cum laude honors, at New Mexico Highlands University. Celeste has been admitted to the Facundo Valdez School of Social Work, MSW Advanced Standing Program on Highlands’ main campus, with a clinical concentration, starting this fall semester.
A 2013 graduate of Monte del Sol Charter School, Celeste is the daughter of Raphael “Drhett” and Bernadine Baca, of Santa Fe.
Eleven college-bound high school students from Northern New Mexico have been selected for scholarships administered by the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Committee.
Pojoaque Valley High School: Dominic Roybal and Anthony Teba. Santa Fe High School: Brian Ortiz. Capital High School: Jessica Sipos. Los Alamos High School: Wilbur Wang, Faith Koh, Bethany Rose Click, Tabitha
Welch, Irine Kwon, Michelle Yang and Jennifer Wang.
The National Merit Scholarship Corp. has announced the winners of its $2,500 national merit scholarships: From Los Alamos High School: Jennifer L. Wang, Wilbur Y. Wang and Robert Y. Zhu.
Elizabeth Katherine Coward, daughter of Kate and Rick Coward of Santa Fe, will receive her Ph.D. in August from the Department of Environmental and Earth Science at the University of Pennsylvania. She successfully defended her dissertation, “Iron-mediated organomineral complexation in the Critical Zone (Puerto Rico): Controls on soil carbon,” on May 8. Elizabeth also received the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for the department in 2016.
Elizabeth graduated from Santa Fe Prep in 2008 and Haverford College in 2012, where she majored in biology.
A team of students from the New Mexico School for the Deaf students recently won the Battle of the Books national championship at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. The school’s Blue Team, Adrien Ercolino, Dustin Hand and Alex Wilding, also won the Sportsmanship Award for their division. Adrien won the division’s All Star Award, and Dustin won Most Outstanding Player for the entire division. Bruce Brewer Jr. of the school’s Buff Team won the All Star Award in that division. The Buff Team won fifth place.
This is the first year that NMSD had two teams qualify for the National Playoffs in the Battle of the Books tournament at Gallaudet.
Edward Sandifer of Santa Fe qualified for the spring 2017 Dean’s List at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. Eligibility is based on a minimum course load of 12 hours and a quality gradepoint average of 3.5 with no grade below a C.
The Davis New Mexico Scholarship, which covers full tuition, room, board, travel, books, incidentals and even a stipend for parents to visit their son or daughter in college each year, was awarded Friday evening to the following students:
Devonna Begay, Vianney Campos, Pema Dema, Keliyah Nobea Lani Dilliner, Tabatha Clarice Dodson, Jason Duncan, Marie Erives, Abril Valeria Gurrola Garcia, Angelina Henry, Vanessa Juarez Morales, Angelika Monique Lucero, Herman Lucero Peña, Odalys Marquez, Carla E. Martinez Mendez, José Abraham Martinez, Mariela MelgarSagche, Diva Miramontes, Sonny Ray Olguin, Adriana Ortega, True Ocean Overlie, Daniella Sol Perez, Dineah Maria Peterson, Daniela Salas Rodriguez, Adriana Vargas and Merit Willey.
Santa Fe High School students Rowan Cahill,
Lisel Faust, Theo Goujon and Ramona Park won first place in the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge for their project, “Urban Installation of Smog Reducing Materials.” Their project simulated the effects of using smogreducing materials on the air quality in a congested city. Second place went to Anna Luisa Batista,
Lily Shevitz and Sylvia Holesinger of Los Alamos Middle School for their project, “Adios! Aedes Aegypti.” They created a computer model that simulates the interaction between wild female mosquitoes and genetically modified males to fight the Zika disease.
On May 10, the National Honor Society in Dance Arts presented new inductees for 2017 from Santa Fe High School, Nina Pelaez and Larissa Foy. Nina also is also the president of the National Honor Society for 2017-18 at the school, and Larissa is a 2017 Super Scholar who is headed to Boston College in the fall.