Former Harmony Magnet Academy student Diana Ramos has been named winner of the 2018 National Academies Foundation (NAF) Next Alumni Award. The award recognizes NAF alumni who have achieved success in either college or their career, or have demonstrated an entrepreneurial spirit that can be attributed in part to their academy experience.
NAF is a non-profit educational organization that partners with high schools in high-need communities to enhance school systems by implementing academies — small learning communities within traditional high schools.
In Porterville, such academies are available to Porterville Unified School District students through its popular Pathways program, and after graduating from Harmony in 2012 through the AOE (Academy of Engineering) Pathway and ranking first in her graduating class of 104 seniors, Ramos attended the University of Southern California as a QuestBridge scholar — one of only eight students to win the full-ride scholarship out of 321 finalists.
She earned her bachelor’s degree from USC in biomedical engineering in 2016, and will earn her master’s degree in engineering management this December. She is currently an engineering intern for Honeybee Robotics in Pasadena.
Pathways opened doors
Before attending Harmony Magnet Academy (HMA), Ramos didn’t have a clue what engineering entailed. At the time, it seemed to her like a male-dominated field involving design or building bridges.
“Diana was a migrant student and couldn’t speak a word of English when she got to Harmony, and at one point her and her family were homeless,” said HMA Principal Jeff Brown. “Don’t tell me Pathways don’t work.”
The Engineering Pathway at Harmony helped Ramos explore the various areas of engineering, and gave her the opportunity to work with 3-D modeling software, which sparked her curiosity.
She enrolled in HMA’s civil engineering and architecture course and participated in a summer architecture workshop, and later obtained an internship through the City of Porterville to help renovate a sidewalk that would encourage pedestrians to walk from the courthouse to Main Street instead of driving.
With the addition of a biotechnology course offered her senior year, she gained an eagerness to learn more about medical and prosthetic devices. This is when she decided to major in biomedical engineering.
As a first-generation college student, she was initially shocked to find that many USC engineering students have a family history of engineers, doctors, and lawyers.
However, coming from a NAF academy, she felt prepared and remained confident that she could compete at the same level as her peers. She aced her first chemistry and engineering exam despite high failure rates recounted by upperclassmen.
Diana successfully obtained a summer research position at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) after her freshman year. She graduated from USC in four years and is currently enrolled as an Engineering Management graduate student at USC.
“If it wasn’t for NAF, I don’t think I would have become a successful engineer,” said Ramos.
Giving back
Ramos spent her freshman year of college giving back to HMA by assisting two seniors in navigating the college application process, which led them to compete for full-ride scholarships at elite universities.
She donated a USC pennant to the HMA career center to motivate high school students to dream big and help them realize that attending an elite institution is possible.
She helped the Porterville Unified School District create an “Empower the Future” video by sharing her experience on how the linked learning system brought incredible, life-changing opportunities such as the summer architecture workshop and the internship with the City of Porterville in their engineering department.
She has also shared her experiences with school administrators from Cuba who wanted to start their own engineering pathway program.
Ramos is currently a regional junior representative for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), where she used her network to organize a STEM conference to inspire Central Valley students who lack role models.
She encouraged fellow engineering professionals to drive over three hours from southern California to the central Valley to participate in the conference.
The inaugural conference demonstrated how three Central Valley natives coming from a low income family and a rural agricultural background were able to successfully transition into college and graduate from USC with an engineering degree. She also recruited two NASA engineers to talk about their work with MARS 2020 Rover.
With this conference, she hopes to excite students about their future work in industries and motivate them to continue their education beyond a bachelor’s degree.
“NAF has made a significant difference in my high school by inspiring middle school students to be excited about their transition into high school,” said Ramos. “They come with the goal to compete every day in academics in order to secure a great education at a prestige university.”
Ramos is one of three NAF alumni in the country who will be accepting their awards at the NAF Next event in July in Washington, D.C.