UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — David Flores says he works off the common wisdom that you’re made up from the average of the five people closest to you.
That’s what the first-year student majoring in materials science and engineering says he loves about the Millennium Scholars Program. He wants to be a leader — and a voice for the underrepresented — when he enters a career researching renewable energy technology.
Flores, of Michigan, chose the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences for its focus on computational materials. That’s the process of using supercomputing powers to discover exciting new materials with unique properties. With this approach, materials can be tailored to suit areas such as renewable energy storage at lightning speed, and the properties of the material are known before it’s even created. It saves time and resources.
He said MSP surrounds him with people with similar goals while he’s shadowed by experts who will help him get there.
MSP, which began at Penn State in 2013, is designed to help underrepresented individuals in STEM fields earn advanced degrees. EMS joined in 2016, and has 30 active students and graduates of the program. EMS is again raising support for the program this GivingTuesday, and hopes to raise funds for two additional Millennium Scholars within the College.
Flores has been around positive role models his whole life. His parents immigrated from Honduras to Canada and then the United States with the hopes of creating a better life for him and his siblings.
“My parents were willing to sacrifice a lot,” Flores said. “They moved their entire lives from Central America and uprooted everything just for our education. They never put pressure on us in the sense that ‘you have to do this, you have to do that.’ But one thing they always encouraged us to do was explore our passions, and look for the right fit. Growing up with that mentality really helped me focus on what I really want to do.”
And what he wants to do is be a leader in a field that can offer solutions to a broad set of societal problems. He said MatSE can be applied to crucial areas such energy, sustainability, and health.
“With energy and sustainability being probably the most important challenge my generation faces, it’s almost an honor to be able to kind of contribute to the challenge against it,” Flores said.
"We’ll get there by attacking these issues with diverse minds. To do that, we’ll need to open some shut doors. When everyone is putting their best out there, that’s when we make the most progress,” Flores said. “Increasing diversity really helps bring in new perspectives. A lot of the topics that we choose to research as individuals comes from our personal experiences. The more perspectives that we can get into the fold, the more solutions we can find, which is the purpose of science.”
Bridget Reheard found her research from something familiar. She’s from Lancaster but spent time at a family camp near Lake Raystown.
Surrounded by waters and the plant and animal life associated with it, Reheard saw the damage that could result from neglecting our streams. The sophomore Millennium Scholar dual majors in wildlife and fisheries science and geosciences and researches ways to understand what’s impacting aquatic health.
A lot of the streams Reheard looks into are high-quality fishing streams. We know the water quality has slipped in a lot of these waters — that’s something she noticed as a kid, being an avid outdoors person — but we need research to track the causes and solutions for this degradation.
Reheard wasn’t sure college was in the cards. She’s the daughter of a single parent and financially, it didn’t seem possible, especially an advanced degree.
“The Millennium Scholars program literally gave me the opportunity to go to college,” Reheard said.
Callaway Pate, a sophomore majoring in energy engineering, grew up in the D.C. area. He loved cars and anything mechanical; and his aunt, an engineer, showed him that anything was possible.
He found Penn State because of its engineering accolades and MSP helped get him in the door.
Like many Millennium Scholars, Pate got involved in research almost immediately. He works on energy storage devices and says the research environment at Penn State — where undergraduate students work closely with graduate students and faculty members — has him in a state of constant growth. Creating affordable energy for all, he said, is another way to improve equity.
Pate is motivated to do research with such impact, and he’s surrounded by others with the same goals and expectations. A transition to renewable energy is necessary, he said, and battery storage will be a crucial part of that.
Pate said MSP offers that extra push because the expectation is that Millennium Scholars get involved in research and position themselves for graduate studies.
“MSP gives you so many resources in terms of research programs, research opportunities and academics that it’s impossible not to grow in your chosen field,” Pate said. “When you’re a Millennium Scholar you’re expected to conduct and publish your research. And these are the kinds of things that you’re not expected to do unless somebody expects it of you. The program has high expectations for us, and we’re expected to meet those expectations.”
With the record-breaking success of “A Greater Penn State for 21st Century Excellence,” which raised $2.2 billion from 2016 to 2022, philanthropy is helping to sustain the University’s mission of education, research and service to communities across the commonwealth and around the globe. Scholarships enable Penn State to open doors and welcome students from every background, support for transformative experiences allows students and faculty to fulfill their vast potential for leadership, and gifts toward discovery and excellence help serve and impact the world. To learn more about the impact of giving and the continuing need for support, please visit raise.psu.edu.