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The Hangout
#69 Dr. Olivia Graeve, Engineering Professor and ENLACE Program Founder
Step into the journey of Dr. Olivia Graeve, whose personal narrative transcends geographical boundaries and academic disciplines. As a groundbreaking professor of engineering at UC San Diego, Dr. Graeve not only shapes the minds of our future innovators but also weaves a web of international collaboration through the ENLACE program. Her story, from a childhood in Tijuana to academic prestige in San Diego and beyond, embodies the spirit of unity and the power of STEM education to bridge communities and transcend and eliminate borders.
Learn more about the ENLACE program here.
And what I understand, having crossed the San Diego-Tijuana border millions of times in my life more or less, is that it needs to come down, and so when I think about that, it's like what can I do? What is my contribution to promote friendships from both sides of the border and to eventually eliminate the border? And this Enlace program is my contribution.
Speaker 2:In this conversation. I was privileged to sit down with Dr Olivia Graeve. Dr Graeve is professor of engineering at University of California, san Diego. We get into her area of expertise in this conversation. She is also the founder of Enlace. Enlace is a summer research program at UC San Diego that aims to encourage the participation of high school and university students in research in the sciences and engineering, while promoting cross-border friendships between Latin America and the United States.
Speaker 2:Dr Graeve and I cover a wide range of topics, from her interest from an early age in math and science, what led her to graduate from UC San Diego and then pursue her doctorate at UC Davis, then serve in different capacities around the country and then returning home to the San Diego Tijuana greater region, where her roots extend through five generations. Here in this area, we talk about the logistical challenges of bringing students across the border to study. We also talk about Dr Greve's clear call to eliminate borders and what that really means. We even take a detour into deep space. I think you'll enjoy this conversation. Dr Greve is energetic, engaging, passionate and it comes through in this interview and comes through in her work to change the world. Welcome to the Superintendent's Hangout, where we discuss topics in education, charter schools, life in general, and not necessarily in that order. I'm your host, dr Shredda. Come on in and hang out. Good afternoon, dr Grebe. Thank you so much for coming on and spending some time chatting today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm happy to be here, really, really glad and honored by the invitation.
Speaker 2:I was wondering if you could start by sharing your personal origin story, your journey, and also then how that combines with your professional journey.
Speaker 1:Sure, I'm happy to share. So I was born and raised in Tijuana, which is the northernmost city of Mexico. It's right across the border from San Diego, which, of course, is where I live now. I live in San Diego and I'm a faculty member at the University of California, san Diego, and so K-12, I did it in Tijuana. I grew up in the border and in fact my family is many generations border folks, both in the Mexican side of the border, in Baja California, and also on the US side of the border, in Southern California. So I have family on both sides of the border and ancestors of mine go back to when California was still a territory of Mexico, for example. So this area here, southern California, and in Baja California are absolutely home for me. This is my home, and I grew up as this border person that moved to some extent seamlessly between the two countries, countries. And then I did my undergraduate degree at UC San Diego, in fact. So where I work now is my alma mater, and this was an opportunity and an experience to see the educational system in the United States, not at the K-12 level, because that, of course, I did in Tijuana, but at the higher education level, and it allowed me to notice and recognize that there are not that many people from Baja California in higher education in this region in Southern California or at least it was at that time California, or at least it was at that time and so it started forming my own views about what I felt was needed in order to join the two sides of the border, to join the two regions under the umbrella of higher education, and, specifically because I am an engineer and specifically because I am an engineer, a higher education in the STEM fields, I went and did my PhD at UC Davis in material science. So my undergraduate degree is structural engineering and then my PhD is in material science and engineering, and when I finished, I became a professor at a different institution.
Speaker 1:I was not hired immediately at UC San Diego. I went and became an assistant professor in Nevada and then, in New York, associate professor, and then at some point in 2012, 2011, 2012,. A position at UC San Diego opened and, of course, I had to try, because this is home, all my family is here, and so it was exciting for me and it was absolutely exciting for my mother, who wanted me back, and my siblings there's five of us in total and so we wanted to be together and all of us are here now, all five siblings and my mother. My father passed away, but my mother and my siblings, we all live in San Diego and we have lots and lots and lots of cousins and uncles and aunts and extended family on both sides.
Speaker 1:When I came to UC San Diego in 2012, I knew that I wanted to start something in the sciences for students from both sides of the border, and that really was the beginnings of the ENLACE program. It's a summer research program that is binational, so this program has students from the US and from Mexico, and when I started it in summer 2013, it was small. I actually started with just five students and they were all from Tijuana when I started the program, but very quickly it grew into something much larger and I have now this summer I'm going to have approximately 200 students in the program and I have approximately 200 students in the program and there are students from both sides of the border and it's not just the immediate border, it's not just San Diego, tijuana, it's students from all over the US and students from all over Mexico. So it has grown tremendously from something very small to now something that is actually very significant and from the point of view of a summer research program, it is actually the largest in the United States at this point in time, with 200 students. That's a lot of students and it's very large.
Speaker 1:Lots of challenges with making sure that the program grew and that it had what it needed to have to serve both sides of the border, both countries. But it's exciting, it's a wonderful program. I have so much fun and it's beautiful, it's just, it's beautiful and it's compassionate and it's the kind of you know with these young people. It's the kind of world that we want for our children when they come together and they interact in such a positive way, doing science and engineering together. It's just beautiful.
Speaker 2:Well, congratulations on the sustainability and the growth, really the significant growth, right From five to how many did you say you had 200, now 200. 200. So how is NLASA structured in terms of staffing, funding, organizational support? I looked a little bit on your website and I know there's a fee, but then right away it talks about scholarship automatic scholarship for folks. So how did, how did you put that together and how have you been able to sustain and grow the program?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the program is funded by industry, the.
Speaker 1:The idea is that that this industry people that you know, companies that believe in the concept and in the program, fund students both from the US and from Mexico.
Speaker 1:So there are, there are funding sources from both sides and also a lot of universities in Mexico really believe in this program so they give scholarships to the students. Mexico really believe in this program so they give scholarships to the students. So the scholarships that I give that are actually listed on my website, are from industry and this is how I sustain it and this is how I grow it. But even if a student receives only partial funding from me, there are all these what I call my silent funders, silent partners that then give the rest of the money. So I can list several universities in Mexico, for example, that do that. I provide maybe half the scholarship or a third of a scholarship and they provide the rest my silent partners, which have been wonderful, and so I have a lot of connectivity to all these institutions to make sure that they understand how much I can do and how much they should do to support their students, and so it's worked out really well this partnership that I have with the universities.
Speaker 2:How did you handle the language realities right? Is the program bilingual? Is there a certain English proficiency level of students? Or maybe there's a Spanish proficiency level going the other way? How did that work?
Speaker 1:Right, so the program is not bilingual. The program from the point of view of what are the scientific aspects of the program? It's in English. Students need to be able to come to UC San Diego and join a research lab and be able to communicate. I'm sure you're aware in the, the types of geographically from where our graduate students are in universities in the United States is extremely international. Of course, there are students from all over the world that all speak English, and then they speak their, their native tongue, and the only common language there is English, and so students need to be able to show up to a lab and be able to communicate with anybody from anywhere in the world, and that common language is English, especially because they're going to be working in a lab and you know what, if they're like working with assets, they need to be able to know that. You know you don't handle it that way, right? Oh, my God, you dropped the acid Like let's figure out how to fix it.
Speaker 1:The program serves all areas of science and engineering. So students join biology labs, they join school of medicine labs, they join, certainly, engineering labs, physical sciences labs, so it's a full-fledged STEM program. It's not just engineering. I think a lot of people think that because I'm in engineering, it must be an engineering program, but it is not. It is all STEM, and so you can imagine the complexities of a student joining a genetics lab, for example, and you know what is it that they do there and what kinds of safeties are necessary. That is a challenge to prepare students to be ready to be responsive to the research environment that they're going to be joining. And so, in the everyday, from the point of view of the lab activities and the lectures that we have as part of the program, that's all in English. However, if you then go to the dorms in the evenings, then I think that you're going to find predominantly Spanish.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And the students that don't speak Spanish, which, and the students that don't speak Spanish, which. I do have students that don't speak Spanish in the program. Get excited and start learning Spanish, at least the basics.
Speaker 2:Right, at least the basics to survive in a dorm. Yes exactly, so it sounds like it's been what you said 2013, so nine years or so, right?
Speaker 1:This coming summer is year 11.
Speaker 2:11,. Okay, so you have a sizable alumni group now.
Speaker 1:Over 1,000 alumni.
Speaker 2:Okay, so have you been able to track and identify where alumni are going and what they're doing and what the impact potentially has been of Enlace?
Speaker 1:I do. I actually have connectivity to all alumni in the program and I do follow up with them periodically to see where they're at, because one of the goals of the program is to eventually have these students join graduate programs, master's and PhD, but especially PhDs. I mean, what I'm trying to do with this program is develop, start engaging, give opportunities to nascent scientists, and so if I'm doing that, then I want to see if they actually became scientists, and so I followed through with them. Many students from Enlace are now in PhD programs, and so that to me is really exciting. Just here at UCSD, we currently have about 20 PhD students that are former ENLACE students. Yeah, very nice.
Speaker 2:Wow. So it's totally within the realm of possibility that one or more ENLACE graduates will eventually become professors at, perhaps at UCSD right? Maybe they're going to work at ENLACE in the summer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the goal. The other goal of the program, and the fact that it is binational, is very connected to my own origins. Right, my own border upbringing is what I want to call it, my border upbringing, and here you're talking about the fact that I do believe strongly that both sides of the border should be united and we should be building bridges of collaboration between the US and Mexico and that eventually there should be no border young people to this program. I envision that I'm going to have among them the future president of Mexico and I like to tell my students that her name is Maria and the future president of the United States, and I'm going to call her Maria too, and Maria and Maria, and they've been friends since they were 17 years old. That destroys borders, that eliminates prejudice, eliminates barriers of communication. It's a beautiful concept and it's a beautiful concept that I myself have lived.
Speaker 1:I have friends that I've had since kindergarten Right, and then I acquired more friends in elementary school and in junior high and in high school and in college. I still have friends that go back to when I was three years old, and when I think about that and I think about the kind of friendship that I have with most honest, purest friendships I have ever had in my life, and this is something I've also told the students in Enlace. The fact that these people are your friends for so long and the fact that they are honest and pure is because they are based on the fact that you like each other. You become friends because you like each other.
Speaker 1:When we become adults, life gets more complicated, but when you are 10 and 15 years old, your friendships are based on the fact that you truly like each other. And if you make those friends at, say, 17, which is where the majority of the high school students in my program are 17 years old right, if I think about that and I think about the fact that they're becoming friends at 17, I'm like that's it. Those are the honest friendships that you're going to have. These people are going to be honest with you your whole life and if you have two presidents of two countries that have been honest friends since 17, you will eliminate borders. It destroys boundaries. It's beautiful.
Speaker 2:As you were mentioning the concept of pure friendship, I was chuckling because someone said to me recently hey, you realize that when you retire, people are going to stop laughing at your jokes the same way they do now when they report to you. You know that's an adult, professional, workplace, dynamic, friendship, right? Yes? Whereas a 17-year-old? Well, if they don't like your joke, they're not going to laugh at it.
Speaker 1:That's right, and they'll just send you. Oh, that's dumb, that's dumb.
Speaker 2:Or they just won't hang out with you. So that's just the end of it. What do you think you to what do you attribute this kind of combination of attribute, this kind of combination of for lack of a better term kind of hard science or material science with a real I don't know. It's almost like an activist slash, sociological kind of approach to a geopolitical kind of region challenge that we have right In San Diego. I mean, someone in your position could have pursued your career and you end up wherever you end up and you're teaching there and you're doing your research, and that's the end of it, right, and that's not a bad thing. But you chose this to amplify that work with this significant other work which I'm sure you don't have many free hours in the day as it is as a professor and a researcher. So what was really the impetus? I mean, you've talked about multiple generations here at the border. Is there something in your family that makes you inclined to give back? I'm just really curious about that.
Speaker 1:Well, I grew up with an amazing mother. My mom is truly an outstanding human being. That instilled in us belief in giving back. The way I like to say it, it's the idea that this is not about you, it's about community, it's about us, it's about family, it's about your surroundings, it's not about you.
Speaker 1:So, instilling in us the idea that we have to eliminate the selfishness that we sometimes have as humans, perhaps, and looking at the world with, with a little bit of rose-colored eyes, in that it can be a better place and that, and with the, but also with the, with the reality and your feet on the ground that say this place can be better and you have to contribute to make it better. And I think that's where that comes from. So, in my research, I value it tremendously, but for me it's not enough. I feel like I need to contribute some other way in what I understand and what I understand is the border, and what I understand, having crossed the San Diego-Tijuana border millions of times in my life more or less, is that it needs to come down, and so when I think about that, it's like what can I do? What is my contribution? To promote friendships from both sides of the border and to eventually eliminate the border.
Speaker 2:And this.
Speaker 1:ENLACE program is my contribution. So I don't just want to do research, I want to contribute in some other way, by educating young people and having them also realize and recognize that there are no borders and that we can have a better world for everyone.
Speaker 2:So in the 11 years that you've been active with Enlace, you know obviously there have been a lot of geopolitical currents. One way or the other We've had a global pandemic. One way or the other We've had a global pandemic. Anybody who lives in the border region, as you and I do, knows about bad traffic coming north, bad traffic going south, depending on what type of construction is happening. There are a lot of potential barriers to overcome. There's probably a marketing piece to this. There's a whole plethora of potential challenges. Can you talk about how you've dealt with those over the ensuing years and how you were able to surmount those as the program continued to grow?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a very complicated question, so let me start by saying that I did have to cancel the program in 2020, because the pandemic started in March, as we're all aware, and so there was not enough time to transition anything to anything.
Speaker 1:And it is a residential program. The students live in the dorms during the. It's a seven-week program, so during seven weeks they come to UC San Diego and they live in the dorms of our campus. So there was no time and the dorms were closed. There was no way, so I didn't have it in 2020. There was no way, so I didn't have it in 2020. But then in 2021, the dorms were still closed, we were still in pandemic I converted the program to virtual. So all the other research projects were machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer software, those kinds of research activities with faculty from computer science, from electrical engineering, from physics, for example, from electrical engineering, from physics, for example. And then I came back in 2022. So you know, it was sad when I canceled the program in 2020 because of the pandemic, but it was something that had to be done. So it's like okay, we're skipping one year, we will come back with full force the year after. And of course we did in 2022. Even in 2021, even though it was virtual, it actually was quite successful, even though I didn't get to see the students in person that that year, right, I didn't get to meet them in person. But then in 2022, again we're back and it's in the dorms and it's like it goes back to its beautiful way of interacting and connecting.
Speaker 1:So the beginnings of my response is the following One is you have to be flexible. Not everything is going to go the way you think it's going to be. Who would have thought that we were going to have a global pandemic? And one needs to be flexible and say you know what? We're in this for the long haul, we're in this for the long term, so we skip one year. Yes, there were some students that were impacted. I understand that, but at the same time, it's like there's nothing I can do about this. Right, I'm not going to stop the pandemic myself. There's going to be lots of other you know more smarter people than me that will manage this, smarter people than me that will manage this. So, flexibility, the capacity to say all right, this is not working, we're going to switch over to this other thing. And that's what I did in 2021, right, I switched to a, to a virtual program, and then I came back to in-person afterwards. That's one Flexibility, the recognition that you cannot solve everything in the world, and the capacity to then pivot to do something else and something different, like when I went virtual in that one year.
Speaker 1:The other thing that is in response to your question has to do with the people, the people. It is very important to establish a network of supporters and you don't do it in one day, you do it over, sometimes over very extended periods, but you start on day one and for me, the biggest supporters are. There's lots of people that support this program but, for example, the consuls the consul of Mexico here in San Diego, over four different consuls that I have that have experienced being here in San Diego as part of during the program, going back all the way to Remedios, gomez and Marcela and Carlos, and now we have a new consul, alicia. So all four of these consuls always thinking this is so good for our students and for Mexico. Okay. The other hugely supportive is the US consul in Tijuana, at the Tijuana consulate. I cannot tell you how many times they helped me with the visa process for the students, not just the processing. I mean the processing. Yes, lots of tons of people do processing of visas, but, like when there was a glitch, there was a hiccup in the visa process, they were there to support not just the consulate in Tijuana, and again they're going back to several consuls Andrew, will, tom, the current one, sue Susanio amazing people, amazing people, but all the way to the embassy of the US. And so when I think about these people and many, many others that are there to do their little, you know, their little support, their little grain of contribution, their little grain of sand is like oh, avisa got a hiccup, let's undo the hiccup, let's fix this, for example. But also I want to give you another example which I'm so grateful for Students, because they're young, they get into all kinds of trouble, and I don't mean like.
Speaker 1:You know what I really mean when I say trouble, I mean accidents. One fell from their bike, another one got their ankle sprained playing basketball, another one, uh, here in san diego last summer, for example, we had a lot of, um, stingrays in the ocean because of, uh, the water temperature was just about right for a lot of stingrays and you see, san diego is right next to the ocean, so they go to the beach and and they don't, uh, they. Nobody apparently has told people that don't live next to the ocean that you shuffle, that's right. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. And uh, these students did not know that they had to shuffle and I had several incidents of stingray. Uh, I had incidents, certainly the bikes and these kinds of mobility things.
Speaker 1:What do I need to do in order to respond in an immediate way to these kinds of things? Certainly UCSD support me with emergency room services, right, and UCSD has a very active, very large medical school with medical teaching hospitals. So emergencies I got that covered. You know it's through UC San Diego and it's like right there on campus so I don't have to worry about it. But then there are things that are like not true emergencies. For example, I had a girl a girl that's her her tooth started hurting like badly. Clearly I needed a root canal. It's like, oh, now I have to think about that, the root canal situation. Very easily, I took her down to Tijuana to one of my dentist friends and my dentist friends did it for free. You see that community, there's a whole community of people that believe in this concept and that will support my program because of that. Everything from root canals to somebody sprained their ankle, let's go and get some x-rays done, kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:So who staffs the program in the summer? I mean, I'm assuming you have adults who kind of chaperone the dorm situation. You probably have professors who are graduate students or doc students who are doing lab research. How does that look in terms of the support at your team level?
Speaker 1:Right On the research side. Students join one research lab right and of course that lab is going to be led by a professor, by a professor faculty member. The faculty member is not the one that provides day-to-day supervision of the students. The graduate students in that research group are the ones that do that. So every pair of students in ENLASA joins a research group and they get assigned what I call the graduate mentors. So this graduate mentor is the one that the two and lots of students and, by the way, I always place and lots of students in labs in pairs, never by themselves. They help each other, they support each other and, as much as I can, it will be one student from from each country. Wow, because then that's that's building that friendship right in the context of a research lab experience. That's building that friendship right in the context of a research lab experience Not always works out because I don't always end up exactly with the same number of students from one country versus the other country, right. So I play around with that and I'm flexible, but I try as much as I can to do the pairs, one from each country, and so they get their graduate mentor and that's the student that they have to respond to and they are supporting in the research activities that they undertake for the seven weeks. They are supporting the dissertation work of that PhD student. So that's in the lab, in the dorms.
Speaker 1:Indeed, I have chaperones that live in the dorms with the students. So for every, especially because I have minors in the program, I have both high school students and college students. The college students are not minors, so those I don't have to have chaperones for them, but I do have, basically, resident assistants that are there to support and help and pay attention to what's happening. Uh, but the, the high schoolers, the minors, they have very much an assigned chaperone. For every seven to 10 high schoolers there's one chaperone that actually lives with them in the dorms.
Speaker 1:Uh, I've never had, uh, anything bad happen in the dorms. Uh, it's, it's structured very well and I also know that it's because the students are there, because they want to learn, they're responsible, they don't want to do dumb stuff. Um, and I move into the dorms, I'm there as well for the seven weeks. Wow, I get my own. I don don't, I don't share a room. I, I get my own special resident assistant room with it's, you know, separate, but it's like right there in the middle of the dorms and uh, and I, yes, I, for many, for many years now, during summer, I, I live in the dorms. Isn't that fun, fun.
Speaker 2:You get to have eternal youth.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's what I do.
Speaker 2:So, in terms of demand for the program right, you grew from five to 200 and do the number of applicants exceed the number of openings, or does that kind of flow? How competitive is it for a student to get accepted?
Speaker 1:So this year we received over 600 applications and we have 200 students in the program. That's about. So one in three, approximately, is currently what it is and obviously it varies right. Obviously it varies right, some years more, some years less. Uh, it sometimes it's like one in five. This year turned out to be one in three. That got in right, um, and so I I don't I don't know how it's going to be the year after, for example, but uh, it is competitive and there are requirements with respect to grade point average, and that's all described very well on the website for the program. If you look at the website now, you'll see the application instructions for this summer, which, of course, is no longer relevant. Right, the application deadline already passed, like a long time ago, but I will reopen the application in fall early fall, like September, late September for 2025. And then we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2:I want to pivot a little bit to kind of your own research interests. We were joking before I hit record that I wish I could claim I read your articles that you've published, at least the ones on the website but I was just struggling with the titles so I didn't even try to open the PDFs. Didn't even try to open the PDFs. But to what do you attribute your interests in science at this level and at the level you've gotten to? That you'll describe? And then my second part of my question is how much of your work is focused on and by work I mean the enlace work how much of that is focused on promoting sciences for girls and young women? Is that part of it based on your own journey?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is part of it very much. So okay, let me. I think I want to read. There was two questions.
Speaker 2:So the first part is just, I guess, what inspired you to go into material science and if you could kind of explain to the lay person like me what that really entails. And then the second part is to talk about the influence on girls in the profession.
Speaker 1:Sure. So my interest in material science goes back to like middle school when I started taking chemistry as a separate subject in school. And I love chemistry and I love the periodic table and I was fascinated from the get-go in seventh, eighth grade, with all the chemistry concepts and all the richness of information that the periodic table has. All matter in the universe is made out of the things that are listed in the periodic table, of the elements. That, to me, was fascinating. So it goes back to that.
Speaker 1:I've always loved chemistry and I have always been good with math. So, as is common with people that are like better with math, in say, like by the time you get to high school, a lot of people, oh, you're good at math, you should be an engineer, and so so for me it was like, yeah, okay, I don't know what that means, but sure I may be engineer. Sounds good to me. And I always say to students when I, when I teach concepts of the periodic table, I always say you should buy one or get one, print one from the internet. Whichever way, you want to get one, get one and then paste it in front of the wall that's in front of your bed. So when you get up in the morning, that's like the first thing. You see the periodic table.
Speaker 1:And then you can say, wow, this is a beautiful day and this is what the universe is made of. And so I always say that to my students. What I do in material science is to think about the periodic table and to think about ways of mixing elements from the periodic table to make new compositions and new materials. And so it goes back to my love of chemistry and it goes back to my interest in sort of mixing things. And so if I think of the periodic table and mixing carbon with nitrogen, for example, and mixing carbon with titanium or with tungsten or with tantalum or with calcium or with boron, all of these elements in the periodic table right.
Speaker 1:You recognize all these things I do.
Speaker 2:I didn't recognize tantalum, but because I looked at that that's in one of the titles of your articles and I thought oh, I got to go back and see what that is.
Speaker 1:So it's a transition metal, it's like a very heavy, like lower in the periodic table, and so if I think about all of these and just kind of mixing them up and see what we get in an educated way Right, this is why I got a PhD in material science to to be able to know how to mix things the right way and get new properties and get new materials out of that.
Speaker 1:So that to me, is sort of the origins of my love for the periodic table and what I do now in my research. A lot of the materials I work with and that I try to develop in my lab with my students as we work together is materials for extreme environments, so, for example, materials for ultra high temperatures, like for hypersonic aircraft, reentry vehicles for space applications, or materials for ultra, ultra low temperatures, like materials for satellites. Materials for the depths of space, which is very, very cold. Materials for vacuum environments, which is also space applications. So a lot of the materials are thinking about extreme environments, particularly space, space environments, and that means extremes of temperature, vacuum, extremes of radiation also, so materials for resistance against radiation. All of these are materials that I work with and if I think about space and now we're getting very sci-fi. Space is the final frontier and I want to tear down that wall as well, that other frontier.
Speaker 2:Well, in terms of tearing down walls, I'd imagine that. Actually, I think I recall reading that you were the first Latina professor of engineering, I think at UCSD.
Speaker 1:Yeah from Latin America, the first Latin American. Yeah from.
Speaker 2:Latin America. So that's quite an achievement and when you're talking about such a massive region and percentage of population in the world, how has that experience been for you and what level of is that extra pressure on you in terms of professionally and as an example?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it goes back to your question about girls, right? Yeah, so my response to that is no, and I will tell you why. Because I happen to have thick skin. I'm not saying that there's no microaggressions and I'm not saying that it's not hard. I'm saying that I happen to have the personality that allows me to basically just kind of let things flow and not take it personal, because in fact, in a lot of cases it's not personal and so it's more accident, it's more just not personal, and in some cases it is, and then you just let it flow. If it was something truly heinous, I would do something about it, and I do have that personality. If I was being harassed psychologically or if I had had any incidents of sexual harassment, for example, I would have done something about it.
Speaker 1:And that is the kind of personality that I have and that comes from my mother, who is a very strong person. So I would not bad, really truly bad things, I would not let them flow, I would do something about it. I think that a lot of case, in a lot of cases, with women that do go through discrimination and that do go through harassment, they sometimes feel very helpless, they don't know what to do, they don't know who to approach and in some cases I would say that's maybe the case, maybe there is nobody you can approach, because the world is very different in the Americas, from Canada all the way down to Argentina, the world is a different place and it's a lot of miles and miles and kilometers and kilometers of distance between a woman in science saying, say, in Canada or the United States, or you know, I can go down right from the Americas, from the way all the way to the top, alaska actually, which of course is the United States, but Alaska all the way to the other corner. That's very different for women from one region to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next to the next. And I can, I can I recognize that in certain regions of the Americas and I don't just mean Latin America, I mean in certain regions in the United States women are in a lot of ways, helpless, nobody there to help them. But if there is even one sliver of hope that somebody can help you, you should go out and ask for that help.
Speaker 1:And so that is something that I have done my entire life. When something goes wrong, I reach out for help from people and I'm not afraid to do that. It's like maybe it's also connected to internal courage that comes from strength of character, from my mother. And so then, what I tell girls and yes, my program, by the way, my program, the first year, the five original students on the program were all girls. I started with a, with an old-girl program, and then and then it's no longer the case I, I have, uh, I have students from, in fact, all three genders male, female and non-binary. I do have all three, and it's wonderful to see these three genders interacting.
Speaker 1:No so, but I started it with girls and, and my goal there was how can I pass along even just a little bit of this confidence and strength of character that will allow you to be successful? And what I mean by that is that for groups that are underrepresented. Say, for example, women in science and engineering. Or say, for example, latinos in engineering, in general, black students in a variety of different environments, not just engineering, but also in engineering, just engineering, but also in engineering.
Speaker 1:What students need is role models, and if you are a role model, you need to step up to the plate and be that role model, even if internally you feel like you're an imposter. So even the most accomplished people once in a while feel imposter syndrome. By the way, it's human nature to feel like all of a sudden you are just not good enough or not up to the task, right. So we all feel at some point in our lives imposter syndrome and the goal here is to recognize it and say oh yeah, I'm feeling imposter syndrome right now. I'm just going to let it go and I'm going to keep going and I'm going to be that role model for girls, for underrepresented students in general.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned that you live in the dorms in the summer and obviously you spend a lot of time around young people, whether not always 17 year olds, right? When in your regular uh no, no, that's right self, about life, about career, about the future.
Speaker 1:Oh, another complicated question. I think that that my best advice is that, even if the world seems to be crumbling around you, it isn't. There will be a next morning and planet Earth will continue to revolve around the sun and you will get sunshine on you, which is always a beautiful thing and then night will come again and hopefully you can get to sleep and wake up the next morning and say the sun came out again. I understand that there are all kinds of psychological things that are happening in young people's minds at the moment that there's a lot of stress. I'm feeling stress right now with, uh, all the things that are happening around the world, in the middle east in particular. Um, I think you have to cover yourself with with the the blanket of your community, in your family, and say I'm going to do something about this. I'm going to contribute in some way today by studying harder, by succeeding in my education, so I can then become a professional that can change the world for the better. So I think my advice is you are contributing by just being there and being positive and doing the things that you need to do, like showing up to a midterm exam, for example, when you need to hardships of the world to get to you in such a way that it actually hinders your progress as a person, your progress as a student, your progress in finishing your education. You don't have to solve all the problems of the world. You have to be flexible and say there are several million billion people on this planet. Not everybody is contributing. There are people that are actually not contributing. We know that, but we also know that, in the end, there, from the point of view of good people versus bad people, bad people, um, I'm gonna quote star trek no, star wars actually.
Speaker 1:Uh, there's a scene in, uh, in one of the in episode seven or eight or nine, uh, where it says, uh, where they're having a conversation and one of them says they want to be. You know, the bad people want to believe that you're alone and the response to that is no, there's more of us. There's more of us, the good people of this planet, and you need to become a team player with the good people of this planet, because there are more of us and, um, and if there are more of us, eventually we're going to get to a place where this, this is going to be a beautiful planet with no more of the badness, let us, let us say it that way. And so you cannot change everything in the world. You can only do what you can do.
Speaker 1:Be one of those good people, be one of the team good there's more of us and change the world eventually, baby steps, do what you need to do that day, get to your midterm, submit your homework, study, prepare. And all the stresses of the world that are preventing you from doing that. Perhaps it is not the moment for you to try to solve them, perhaps it is somebody else's job at that moment, and you need to do what you need to do in order to then contribute to the good people of this planet. What do you think about that?
Speaker 2:I think it's powerful and timely between focusing on upcoming elections in both in the US and Mexico, right Significant protests going on around the world and on college campuses and I know UCSD has been impacted and all of these different currents. I was speaking with someone the other day and I work with young people all the time and thinking about how social media has given young people the possibility of looking into this window all the time. Bias, right, and so it can become. It can feel so overwhelming. I mean, as a 53-year-old professional, I largely avoid much of social media for that very reason. I just can't handle the onslaught of negativity all the time.
Speaker 1:I mean, I blame social media for the, for the, basically the pandemic of mental health that we have in our young people at the moment. I can't blame them. It's like they this barrage of information and too much of it, too much, stressful, stressful. I don't have any social media. I don't have a Facebook account, I don't have a Twitter account, I don't have a LinkedIn account. Even a LinkedIn account I don't have one. I don't have a single account of social media. I have made that choice for myself, you know, for a while, I say 10 years ago. So I was getting a lot of pressure to get oh, come on, get a Facebook account.
Speaker 1:Everyone has one. Sorry, no, I have never had one and I will, I never will.
Speaker 2:Where do you see in Lhasa 11 years from now?
Speaker 1:where would you like it to be? So that is difficult to predict. I could not have imagined in 2013, when I started the program, that 10 years later I would have a program that has 200 students in it, for example. I definitely am not in the business of making predictions, because predictions are almost always wrong.
Speaker 2:Except if it's on the Simpsons.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's true. Yeah, the Simpsons, they always true, yeah, the simpsons are.
Speaker 1:They always get it right. The simpsons always get it right. Um, so what I do know is the following it's not ending. I'm going to have it in the in 10 years and lasse is still going to be around.
Speaker 1:Uh, and years, enlace is still going to be around and I am, as more students graduate from Enlace, participate in Enlace and come out of Enlace, I am building my little army I'm going to call it of young people that have, that are growing up with perhaps less biases and that have lived this experience of, of students from two countries that that are very different from each other but that are neighbors. And at some point I'm going to say, okay, all of us, we're tearing down the wall, this wall, the one here in the San Diego-Tijuana border. I told this to the consul and I said sorry, but you know, I can see that we're doing this Because we can, because si se puede, because we don't have to have a border between our two countries. So that's where it's going to be 10 years from now. The army is going to be a little bit more robust.
Speaker 2:I appreciate and respect the courage of your convictions. I realize that, as you say, you have thick skin and you let things roll off and you let things bounce off. These are interesting times even to be talking about the topic of borders in general in the United States and certainly talking about the elimination thereof. You know I don't want to get political, but you know we could imagine, depending on which dinner party we're at, those conversations go in all different directions. So I really appreciate the fact that also, as you start, we started today's conversation with you talking about, I think, five generations in a region where, in a region that certainly in Tijuana as a city and as a municipal area, has had such explosive growth over the last even 30 years, right, where, with so many, shall we say, non-native Tijuanans there, right, and so the fact that you've got your core here is just such a powerful thought.
Speaker 1:So I believe strongly in uniting people from all over the world. Tijuana now has a very active and very beautiful Haitian neighborhood with all kinds of great food. These are immigrants that came after the earthquake and they stayed. They stayed in Tijuana, and one one would be surprised, but there's all kinds of people from all over the world that get to go through Tijuana and stay in Tijuana. So for me, uh, I think that in you know when, when one has, um, a vision, one cannot say that this is going to get done in 10 years or 15, or 20, or even 100. It's a goal that is worthy. To eliminate borders around the world, including San Diego, tijuana, but everywhere around the world, is a worthy, lofty goal, and that is how I envision it. Can I say in 10 years it's going to get done? Oh, I have no idea. Probably not, but that's okay. The goal is there, the working to that, towards that, is there.
Speaker 2:You've been very generous with your time and I have one last question for you. But before we get there, is there anything that we haven't touched on today, that you'd like to elaborate more on, whether anything related to NLASE that we didn't touch on, or your work as a professor and researcher Anything that we haven't touched on that may be kicking around in your head um, I think that the well one thing, uh, because everyone's career is based on community.
Speaker 1:It's based on the fact that you are successful because other people are propping you up, because other people are supporting you. You cannot do something all on your own. We are a social species, after all. Right, you are in a job and there are other people at that job, and so, unless you're a hermit living in a cave, we live in society and there are people that are going to prop you up and support you and help you, like some of the people that I talked about that have supported Enlace. And so my last message is with all of those people, one needs to be grateful. The concept of gratefulness and the capacity to acknowledge that somebody helped you, I think, is very important as humans. So be grateful so be grateful.
Speaker 2:Well, as you were saying that, I thought about that somewhat cliched idea, but it's accurate of standing on the shoulders of giants, absolutely and in in everything that we we do. Right, you mentioned your mother and and and um uh, I'm sure you've had professional mentors and giants along the way as well.
Speaker 1:My PhD advisor, for example.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know these mentors pop up in our life in formal and informal ways. Right, and we can never forget them that I'm going to do a series of mentor episodes where we get the mentee and the mentor who haven't talked in a long time on the podcast and the mentee gets to tell the mentor exactly what they meant to them.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm trying to. It's logistically hard and sometimes we're dealing with mentors who are, you know, of advanced age and so that's always a bit of a complicating factor. But we all have them, and so often, I think, we don't tell them how much they meant until it's too late as well.
Speaker 1:That's being grateful in the moment saying thank you.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to end with this, and you've touched on a number of different themes, and so some of these may weave into this, but you may have come up with something else. Hypothetically, you have the chance to create a billboard on the side of a well-traveled freeway, a thoroughfare. Well-traveled freeway, a thoroughfare Probably in your case it's going to be facing US, mexico, and then, if we don't have a border anymore I'm not sure what it's called, but it's going to be seen by this whole region here in the San Diego Tijuana area. What does your billboard say about life, about work, about your beliefs, about what inspires you?
Speaker 1:Look beyond the walls. Be a leader that creates bridges. We are all those people on the other side.
Speaker 2:Look beyond the walls. The other side Look beyond the walls. That fits perfectly with your mantra of do away with borders and looking into the final frontier as well, right?
Speaker 1:Yes, with materials.
Speaker 2:With materials, with materials. I want to thank you so much for for your time, your generosity, your generosity of thought and inspiration. And where can folks find out more about Enlace? I'm assuming they just Google it and there's a link from the UCSD website and that's the best place, correct? Yeah?
Speaker 1:If you put on a browser Enlace UCSD, it'll come up. It's like the first name.
Speaker 2:That's perfect. I want to thank you so much. It's been a true pleasure chatting with you this afternoon.
Speaker 1:Thank you for this invitation, super grateful.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the Superintendents Hangout. You can follow me on Twitter at DVS1970. Please be sure to share this show with friends and family on social media and in the real world. Thank you to Brad Backeal for editing and production assistance and to Tina Royster for scheduling and logistics. Thanks for hanging out and have a great day.