AISES

Jordan is a Senior at Yale University, and also the Co-President of the Yale American Indian Science and Engineering Society (yAISES) chapter. Fellow members of the organization, like Madeline say they have committed to promoting the visibility of Indigenous students in STEM.

“A lot of our work is really going off [the phrase], ‘you can’t be what you can’t see,’ and so we try to connect our students with people that have done this and are successful in their careers and industries that have to do with STEM, whether it’s graduate school, or an industry job: making sure our students know that representation is out there and exists.”

It makes sense; this is what the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) is all about. AISES is a national nonprofit organization focused on substantially increasing the representation of Indigenous peoples of North America and the Pacific Islands in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) studies and careers.

When the Supreme Court reversed its stance on Affirmative Action this past June, AISES’ CEO Sarah Echo Hawk shared these words.

“Education is the answer for Native people trying to better ourselves, in the face of 200 years of unfair, discriminatory treatment – lost land and language, impoverished economies, and chronically poor health outcomes, and now education will be harder to obtain, after the Supreme Court ruling that will make college campuses even less diverse.”

The SCOTUS ruling does not change what AISES does, but rather makes their work even more important. 

Thanks to you, Together Rising was able to invest $50,000 to ensure more Indigenous people have access to AISES’ pre-college, college, and professional programs. Thanks to you, even more Indigenous students will attend college and complete graduate programs, and even more Indigenous people will receive professional support through AISES – encouraging and empowering even more from the Indigenous community to be represented in STEM.