The chapter participated in helping the University of Dayton students critique their resumes on October 22, 2024

The Society Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) Christmas Party,14 Dec 2023. Nice time & laughs!

Dear All,

I just wanted to send a quick reminder of our SHPE Chapter social tomorrow and encourage those “on the fence” to join us at least for a portion of the activity. No worries if you are unable to engage in the Potluck or White Elephant. The idea is to get to visit together and network for a few minutes and “exchange our season greetings”

Looking forward to seeing many of you tomorrow 🙂

Yinko Grajeda

M+1(937)409-9264 

Meet Nivia Colon-Diaz, our #LabLife feature this week! A proud alum of Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto de Mayaguez and Arizona State University. Currently , she is at the helm, leading a dynamic team at AFRL, dedicated to advancing technology for the Air Force.

At AFRL, Nivia is on a mission to explore ideas for air & space domains, emphasizing collaboration across technical directorates.

Currently immersed in a fascinating project, assessing mutual coupling effects on next-gen RF sensors. Innovation in action!

Advice to aspiring STEM professionals: Nivia suggests finding a mentor who inspires you and absorbing their knowledge.

Beyond work, it’s all about family, gardening, and the joy of cooking for Nivia. Life’s a delicate balance!

Mr. Ledé joined the Air Force Research Laboratory as the Commander’s Autonomy Technical Advisor in July 2018. In this role, Mr. Ledé oversees the entire AFRL Autonomy and AI portfolio and makes recommendations on new programs leveraging internal and external research. Mr. Ledé is the senior Air Force Research Laboratory representative in the OSD Autonomy Community of Interest and the Department of the Air Force AI Cross-Functional Team. He also serves as the autonomous Member at Large for NATO Science and Technology Office System Concept and Integration Panel. Prior to these positions, Mr. Ledé was a Program Manager at DARPA within the Tactical Technology Office and the Defense Sciences Office. Starting in 2013, he led multiple autonomy programs including Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE) aimed at increasing the capabilities of existing unmanned systems via heterogeneous teaming at the tactical edge, the Fast Lightweight Autonomy (FLA) program to enable autonomous navigation of small quadcopters in a complex environment with no external sensing (including GPS) and no a priori knowledge, the Centralized Control of Commercial Drones (C3D) that provides a safe and effective mean of controlling multiple commercial UAS. Mr. Ledé also led several classified programs focused on reducing time and cost while improving the performance of UAS, as well as several counter UAS programs. In addition, Mr. Ledé developed several critical technologies to enable novel aircraft configurations including new aerodynamic effectors, new motors, and other subsystems (radios, sensor payloads, advanced fuel). Prior to joining DARPA, Mr. Ledé was the Director for Autonomous/Unmanned Systems at Raytheon Missile Systems, where he provided a vision for innovative autonomous systems concepts and products and oversaw the development of a miniature strike weapon. Before working at Raytheon, Mr. Ledé held multiple positions with Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation, ultimately becoming Vice President for Advanced Concepts. At Aurora, he focused on rapid prototyping and the development of new unmanned air vehicle concepts.

A special thanks to our volunteers from RYA who led and executed a virtual Bilingual STEM event on 29 September 2021.  AFRL, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), and Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) partnered for a Science Night at Belmont high school which included dinner and a robotic arm competition.  There were 28 underrepresented students from 15 different countries (US, Dominican Republic, Uganda, Mexico, Angola, Columbia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Congo, Eritrea, Honduras, Rwanda) and 10 languages, one advisor, and 4 AFRL volunteers who participated.  The STEM event was a follow-on requested by the students. SHPE and SMART sponsored the event and provided participation gifts and competition prizes for the students. Students were introduced to both SHPE and SMART opportunities and resources in addition to a team-building Robotic Arm STEM exercise. The winning team was able to build a robotic arm with cardboard, string, straws, and masking tape that could pick up different objects such as plastic cups, plates, and an envelope.  The students worked in teams to design, test, and augment their robotic arm with limited instructions. The volunteers were successful in getting the students to work in groups, communicate their construction ideas, and have fun while being exposed to STEM.  Thanks again for contributing to the community, Belmont High School, SMART, and SHPE Dayton.