Despite having visited the campus several times with her father, Robert Guerra, a Rice University graduate from the Class of 1998 and a former Owl mascot, Stella Guerra said she was nervous about staying overnight in a campus residential college for the weeklong Tapia Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Camp.
But once the program began, the 14-year-old from Corpus Christi quickly forgot about her apprehensions. “When I came, to say the least, I was scared,” Stella said. “Now I don’t want to leave. I’ve had such a good time. It has built my knowledge.”
Stella joined more than 110 students from grades eight through 12, hailing from around the world, at one of the Tapia STEM Camps at Rice. The event also featured special guests Brad Crabtree, assistant secretary of the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management at the U.S. Department of Energy, and John Hall, president and CEO of the Houston Advanced Research Center.
The Tapia STEM Camps, founded by and named after Richard Tapia, University Professor, the Maxfield-Oshman Professor of Engineering and professor of computational applied mathematics and operations research, aims to encourage students from underrepresented communities to pursue STEM careers. The camps, which ran four week-long sessions from June 30 to July 26, also give students a glimpse into college life.
“My parents never received a college education. They never finished high school,” said Tapia Camps counselor and Rice student Brandon Lozano. “I think what Tapia has done, making sure that there is a minority presence in STEM education, is pretty great.”
Communication and teamwork are emphasized as essential skills for a successful career in STEM. Campers practice public speaking and collaborate on projects, presenting their final work to professors, students and Tapia.
Rice faculty and staff lead the camp sessions. This year marks more than seven years of collaboration between ExxonMobil and the Tapia Center for Excellence and Equity in Education at Rice, expanding the camps’ reach and resources to high school students.
“At camp, they have taught me a lot about being a leader, mathematics and how to challenge myself and be in a group of people with diversity,” said 18-year-old high school graduate and Tapia camper Christopher Lewis.
This year, the curriculum focused on two topics: building algorithms and fairness in the context of college admissions and a carbon capture, utilization and storage project where students learned about capturing carbon dioxide and its transportation to designated sites for permanent underground storage.
“The Tapia name means two things: It means excellence and equity,” said Paul Hand, interim executive director of the Tapia Center who designed the camps’ course material. “We build incredible programming that is original and shows students that what they learn in class affects their lives. We also include as many different populations of students as we can so that everyone can see that they, too, belong in STEM.”
Tapia’s contributions to STEM education and equity are widely recognized. In 1992, he became the first Hispanic elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He served on the National Science Board, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, and received numerous awards, including the National Medal of Science from former President Barack Obama in 2011.
“There have been challenges along the way. They are expected,” Tapia told the students Friday. “You have to deal with them as they come along and keep going.”
Since 2016, the Tapia STEM Camps have grown from 20 participants per year from Texas to over 1,000 across the Gulf of Mexico region and beyond.
