Idalis Villanueva Alarcón, Ph.D., associate chair and associate professor in the Department of Engineering Education (EEd), has been awarded the Educator Achievement Award – Higher Education in the 2024 Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) Technical Achievement and Recognition (STAR) Awards.
“Words can’t really express how thankful I am,” Villanueva Alarcón said. “This has been a dream of mine for a long time.”
Formed in 1974, SHPE describes itself as an organization that empowers the Hispanic community to realize its fullest potential and to impact the world through STEM awareness, access, support and development. With a vision to build a world where Hispanics are highly valued and influential as the leading innovators, scientists, mathematicians and engineers, the organization is now hosting nearly 20,000 members.
“I have been serving in SHPE since 2014,” Villanueva Alarcón said. “The gratitude I have for SHPE as an organization and how it continues to be a beacon of hope for others like me is what continues to motivate me to be a part of this organization.”
Villanueva Alarcón has built a notable list of achievements over her career while working with this Hispanic community. In her decade with SHPE, she has served on the SHPE Faculty Development Symposium (FDS) committee twice, served as a SHPE Student Chapter Faculty Advisor, and had the honor of being the only Latina engineering faculty out of 50–invited SHPE members to attend the first White House Office of Public Engagement Policy Briefing on “Building the Next Generation of Hispanic Leaders in STEM” in 2023. Alongside her work with SHPE, she has made appearances as an invited expert to speak on several Spanish-speaking podcasts and radio talk shows and was recently a co-editor on a book titled “INTEGRANDO STEAM: A Guide for Elementary Bilingual and Dual Language Programs,” which was awarded the 2024 American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) Best Edited Book Volume Award.
“For my community, I engage in a lot of work that values language, culture, and the strengths we bring,” Villanueva Alarcón said. “Just this summer, my colleagues and I (Laura Cruz Castro, Ph.D., John Mendoza-Garcia, Ph.D., Edward Latorre-Navarro, Ph.D., Diego Alvarado, and Liliany Virgüez, Ph.D.) received the Best Overall Conference Paper Award at the American Society of Engineering Education conference by speaking about the value that engineering faculty from Spanish-speaking countries bring to engineering education.”
Despite battling a handful of challenges over the span of her academic career, which included being a first-generation student with a low economic background, Villanueva Alarcón is honored to have worked her way up to becoming a part of a small list of Latina engineering faculty in the United States.
“At a larger scale, I don’t think I can quantify the impact I’ve had,” Villanueva Alarcón said. “I mean, take for example, last year when I found out that in some schools in Puerto Rico, my biography is being taught in high schools as one of ‘the distinguished Puerto Rican women engineers and scientists.’ How mind blowing is that?”
Villanueva Alarcón is set to be honored at the 2024 SHPE National Convention for the organization’s 50th anniversary celebration, which will be held from Oct. 30-Nov. 3 in Anaheim, Calif.
Brady Budke
Marketing and Communications Specialist
Department of Engineering Education