Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers

SHPE

“SHPE changes lives by empowering the Hispanic community to realize its fullest potential and to impact the world through STEM awareness, access, support and development.” – From SHPE.org

Our Mission

The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) at UKY works to empower the Hispanic community of Lexington to attain careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and excel as technical and professional leaders.

Our Purpose

• Increase the number of Hispanic engineering students at the University of Kentucky College of Engineering
• Promote the advancement of Hispanic engineers and scientists in employment and education.
• Develop and participate in programs with industry and the university, which benefit students seeking technical degrees.
• Improve the retention of Hispanic students enrolled in engineering and science.
• Provide a forum for the exchange of information pertinent for Hispanic engineering/science students enrolled in the University of Kentucky College of Engineering.

Join us!

Prospective members of SHPE must be a UKY student (both graduate and undergraduate are welcome) and a STEM major.

Organization email: shpe.uky@gmail.com

Faculty Advisor

Isabel Escobar
859-257-7990
isabel.escobar@uky.edu

Officers

Maria Vazquez Ayala
Josh Duruttya

Outreach

One asset to our organization is our outreach program (EFL)² , “Engineering Exploratory for Latinos from Latinos” (2 E’s, 2 F’s, and 2 L’s). This after-school program is hosted at Cardinal Valley Elementary School, a school with a 76% Hispanic population and 91% of students qualifying for reduced lunch. In this program, we introduce 5th grade students to a new field of engineering each week (Mechanical, Civil, Electrical, etc.) and then do a specific engineering-related activity with them. We will be awarding all the students with medals that read “Little Engineer” at the end of the year at graduation. In order to measure the success of this program, we will be performing a pre- and post- questionnaire video where we ask every student the following questions at the first meeting:

1. “What is engineering?”
2. “Where do we see engineering?”

We then re-ask them those same questions during our last session, hopefully receiving more insightful answers the second time around.