Students Take SACNAS 2024
Four students attended the annual Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science’s National Diversity in STEM Conference, the largest multidisciplinary and multicultural STEM diversity conference in the country.
Paloma López-Caudillo (junior, environmental science), Jacqueline Salazar Chavez (sophomore, biology), Katherine González (junior, psychology) and Karla Acevedo (senior, biology) traveled down to Phoenix, Arizona to attend the 2024 conference from October 31 to November 2.
Salazar Chavez, a first-time attendee, received the Chapter Officer Leadership October Retreat (COLOR) scholarship to attend a one-day retreat prior to the conference focused on strengthening SACNAS members’ ability to guide and nurture their chapters. López-Caudillo and González were also first-time attendees of the NDiSTEM conference, while Acevedo previously attended last year’s conference.
We asked SACNAS members three questions about their experience at this year's conference.

From left to right: Paloma López-Caudillo, Karla Acevedo, Jacqueline Salazar Chavez and Katherine González.
How is attending the SACNAS conference different than "just" being a part of WWU SACNAS?
Katherine González, WWU SACNAS President
Short answer: While the WWU SACNAS Chapter fosters local connections, attending the NDiSTEM Conference expanded our network nationally and inspired a sense of belonging as students of color in STEM. Despite the challenges that occur as first-generation students, the conference taught us that we deserve to be in and can succeed in higher education.
Long answer: While the WWU SACNAS Chapter provides its members with opportunities to connect with their peers and faculty throughout Western and smaller-scale networking, the NDiSTEM Conference provides these on a much larger scale. Instead of only meeting those within the Bellingham community, we met students, recruiters and scientists from across the country. Being able to connect with such a diverse range of individuals is something that we can take with us for the rest of our academic and professional careers. As we met those in attendance, it also provided our members with a higher sense of belonging in the sciences. While we have our community within the club, it can be a struggle to be in spaces that weren’t necessarily designed for our success. Many of us are the first in our families to attend a 4-year university, and the experience can be discouraging. The conference taught us that we do belong and we are capable of academic achievement as we saw keynote speakers, scientists and others who have had our experiences succeed in higher education.
Karla Acevedo, Biology Senior
Attending SACNAS NDiSTEM conference gave me the opportunity to connect with other scientists like myself who are people of color in STEM as undergraduates and graduate students which created a large sense of community and understanding.

What is one connection you made at the conference that will help you in the future?
KG: I had the opportunity to speak with a recruiter from Seattle Children’s Hospital who provided me with information about how to get involved in autism research and the different pathways that are available. I appreciated our conversation, as the autism field is on the smaller side and it can be hard to find different ways to get involved in research.
KA: I was able to connect with an immunology PhD student at UW who was happy to answer all of my questions about the program as well as what her experience has been like pursuing a PhD. I now can stay in contact with someone who is pursuing their PhD to chat and ask questions if I have any in the future. This conference also gave me the opportunity to speak directly to admissions officers from other schools to see what programs could be pursued following my undergraduate degree.
What is one bit of science that you found really exciting at the conference?
KG: I loved learning from an undergraduate students about their research on the characterization of astroglial roles of autism risk genes! As someone very interested in studying autism, it was great to learn more and see what different aspects can be researched.
KA: While attending seminars and poster presentations, I was able to find one about mitochondrial cell stress which relates to the research that I conduct at Western. After the talk given by the primary investigator, I had the chance to talk to an undergraduate in their lab who presented a poster about her project in their lab which gave us the chance to have a meaningful chat about the work being done.