Nest Makerspace
PROJECTS | 2021
Biotech Paletero Cart
Camilla Cabrera, Austin Henry, Roberto Mendoza, Alec Saldana-Jauregui, Samuel Gil-Silva
The team transformed a paletero cart into a hands-on mobile education lab to share knowledge about biotechnology and biodesign with their Salinas Valley farm community.
Finalist Team
AGrowStyle
Mikaela Arista, Noah Arista, Mauricio Chavez, Jordan Montero, Izabella Tejeda
AGrowStyle is a clothing line designed for agricultural fieldworkers. It prioritizes hydration, temperature control, and protection from pollutants to keep the wearer safe and comfortable.
Finalist Team
Instructor - 2021
Corinne Okada Takara
Corinne Okada Takara is a San Jose Area artist/STEAM educator who works with museums, libraries, and after school programs to create workshops that elevate and empower community voices in conversations centered on civic spaces, identity, and technology. She conducts workshops on sustainability and biomaterial design that celebrate existing cultural and community knowledge. She conducts these workshops in Georgia, Hawaii, Los Angeles, San Jose, and Salinas. Takara has mentored two teen Biodesign Challenge teams: GIY Bio Buddies and CocoBucha. Takara received the 2019 Biodesign Challenge Outstanding Instructor Award and is a 2020 Global Community Biosummit Fellow. She is a board member of the community biolab, Xinampa, and is on the Arts Advisory Panel of the Alliance for Youth Achievement. Takara develops programming out of her garage makerspace and is Co-founder of BioJam, a teen camp of the Stanford Bioengineering Department. http://www.okadadesign.com/ & https://nestmakerspace.weebly.com/
ADVISORS
Alba Cárdenas
Alba Cárdenas is from Mexico in the state of Chihuahua and has lived in California since 1995. She has worked with students in both middle school and high school in various fields like STEM and STEAM. In the last year she worked in the Art & Design Thinking camp with Alliance for Youth Achievement and was introduced to biomaterials and some of its various mediums. She continues her exploration into the classrooms with middle school students, hoping to spark interest in biomaterials as part of their STEM exploration.
Leticia Hernandez
Leticia Hernandez is a wife, mom, self-taught gardener. When she is not gardening she is working for the Center for Land-Based Learning as a program coordinator for a high school program called FARMS Leadership. She has also brought to life the Local Urban Gardeners Community Garden in Natividad Creek Park.
MENTOR
Dr. JP Dundore-Arias
Dr. JP Dundore-Arias is a plant pathologist with an interdisciplinary background investigating the biology, ecology, and management of plant-associated microbes. He received his B.Sc. in Agronomy from the University of Costa Rica, and completed M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Plant Pathology at Iowa State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, respectively. After completing graduate school, he received a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the National Science Foundation to conduct research related to agricultural microbiomes at the University of Minnesota. Currently, he is an assistant professor of Plant Pathology at California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB). His lab focuses on investigating the biology, ecology, and management of plant-associated microbes (both plant pathogens and beneficial organisms) of agricultural crops grown in the California Salinas Valley and beyond. His teaching interests center on the development of accessible and adaptable training opportunities in microbiome research, including Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs), for young scientists from diverse backgrounds and experiences.