SA + P Faculty Member is Recipient of Prestigious “Women in STEM” Award
August 1, 2024
School of Architecture + Planning faculty member Elspeth Iralu, assistant professor of Community and Regional Planning, is one of 14 UNM faculty members selected for the 2024 “Women in STEM” award.
Dr. Iralu’s proposed project, Indigenous Himalaya: Naga Methodologies for Community Resilience seeks to connect essential questions and debates of Indigenous studies with our community of origin, Nagaland, an Indigenous territory at the border of India and Myanmar, and to develop funding proposals for work on community resilience in the Indigenous Himalayas,” according to Dr. Iralu. The work represents a collaboration with Dolly Kikon, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California Santa Cruz. The Women in STEM award will cover Dr. Iralu's travel to Nagaland to pursue her research.
According to Dr. Iralu, to be selected as a STEM honoree as a representative of SA + P is particularly meaningful in that "receiving a Women in STEM award for this work......is a recognition of the need to center Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies in scientific research in Indigenous communities. ADVANCE’s investment in this project will further our ongoing work on how Naga methodologies epistemologies and shape understandings of growth, measurement, and community development in Nagaland."
The Women in STEM award is an initiative of Advance at UNM, a university program that promotes female faculty including women of color, supported by NSF funding, grants and other sources.
Congratulations to Dr. Iralu and all the Women in STEM award winners. To review the full list and their projects, log onto the Advance at UNM website.
