The Clark School Celebrates Latine Engineers
Read Dean Graham's Latine Heritage Month Message
Aralia Ramirez Develops a Culture of Community
Through that experience, and through her master’s degree program in higher education and student affairs at the University of Iowa, Ramirez came to understand just how valuable community is to student success. In her current role at the Clark School, she supports programs that create spaces where students feel they belong. Ramirez oversees and supports global and experiential learning opportunities, which help develop students’ leadership and intercultural capacities. Among other responsibilities, she oversees and facilitates intergroup dialogue courses; she also manages the ClarkLEAD Welcome initiative and short-term study abroad experiences. “It’s been a unique and rewarding experience to be able to serve and support these programs and be a part of a team that centers student success and belonging at the Clark School,” she says. Ramirez also helped launch the campus pilot program for the Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Model for Experiential Learning, which gives motivated students the opportunity to come together to help solve the engineering Grand Challenges and work toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. “The VIP Program spoke to me,” she says. “It gives undergraduate students an opportunity to engage in research despite not having extensive experience yet. These teams are multidisciplinary, attracting students and faculty with different educational backgrounds to work collaboratively to find solutions." Show & Tell With Camille Israel-Espinoza
In addition to her coursework and participation in the Clark Scholars Program, Israel-Espinoza is active in UMD’s chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Dean’s Student Advisory Council for the Clark School. This past summer, she was a commissioning intern for Affiliated Engineers in Rockville, Maryland, where she conducted construction site visits to ensure that engineering projects met specifications and stakeholder expectations. Her dream job? Auto-related. “Maybe Toyota, and eventually F1,” she says. Until then, she’s enjoying the journey—and taking pics along the way.
Israel-Espinoza and her cohort of Clark Scholars are creating a children’s picture book series, starring Remi (pictured), which introduces the engineering fields, to donate to young people at Maryland Day. Inspired by the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series (created by Terp alum Jeff Kinney ’93), Israel-Espinoza says, “Our idea is to make the series available in multiple languages. I’m the project leader, and I’m very proud of it.” (Illustration by aerospace engineering sophomore and Clark Scholar Rachel Yan.)
Hailing from Chile—where school is “very competitive,” Israel-Espinoza says—taught her to “work smarter, not harder, and not burn out.” Still, she relies on her stress-busters: FaceTiming her grandmother in Chile; hitting the gym; and spending time with her pets (pictured), who are named after Star Wars characters—Klyo the cat and Obi Juan the dog, for “a little Latino flair.”
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Coming to the U.S. from Chile in fourth grade, mechanical engineering senior and Clark Scholar Camille Israel-Espinoza was drawn to STEM in middle school, when she was introduced to the engineering design process to solve problems. (In sixth grade, she developed a lipstick-resistant coffee mug.) Now, along with her cohort in the 
