Ph.D. student Diana Lopez receives LEAD graduate student excellence award
Ph.D. student Diana Lopez accepted the award at a ceremony on campus.
On April 3, the UC Irvine Office of Inclusive Excellence, alongside the Latinx Resource Center and Graduate Division, hosted the eighth annual Latino Excellence and Achievement Awards Dinner (LEAD). LEAD honors graduate students, staff and faculty who support and champion student success and research excellence in the Hispanic and Latinx community at UCI. Diana Lopez, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Chemistry who studies nanoscale materials in the lab of Professor Maxx Arguilla, received the Graduate Student Excellence Award for her outstanding research and positive impact on the Latinx community. Lopez promotes awareness of solid-state chemistry and graduate school through programs like the California Alliance for Minority Participation – an NSF-funded, cross-UC program that aims to enhance diversity in STEM fields at the Ph.D. and faculty levels through professional support. “I’m incredibly grateful for the mentors and community who believed in me and helped me grow into the scientist I am today. Their support inspires me to pay it forward through outreach initiatives that demystify graduate school and encourage students to pursue careers in STEM,” Lopez said.