The Eugenio María de Hostos Community College Office of Academic Affairs is proud to share great news about undergraduate transfer scholarships and publications involving HEAT scholars and Hostos Engineering students.

HEAT, a nearly $1 million grant led by Professor of Natural Sciences Yoel Rodríguez and Co-PIs Professors Nieves Angulo, Clara Nieto-Wire and Antonios Varelas, created to support academically talent students with demonstrated financial need and involves faculty from across disciplines including physics, mathematics, engineering and psychology, has shown promising results since its inception in 2019. 

OAA recognizes HEAT Scholar Bielka Peña, who has been awarded the Guttman Transfer Scholarship for High-Achieving Community College Graduates.  

OAA also celebrates HEAT Scholar Oumou Traore, who has been selected as a semifinalist for the prestigious Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship. According to the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation website, 406 semifinalists were chosen from a pool of over 1500 applicants attending 398 U.S. community colleges. 

Additionally, OAA spotlights Professor Rodríguez's research mentorship of students. He has worked with four Hostos engineering students, one of them HEAT Scholar Abdoul Aziz Nignan, who conducted research sponsored by the CUNY Research Scholarship Program (CRSP) and/or College Science Technology Engineering Program (CSTEP) during the 2018–2019 academic year.

Rodríguez led the four students through the process of documenting and sharing their research topic as co-authors of a review peer-reviewed paper in collaboration with the "Instituto de Química Médica" (IQM-CSIC) in Madrid, Spain, entitled “Pharmacological Approaches for the Modulation of the Potassium Channel KV4.x and KChIPs.” The paper was published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

The Hostos Office of Academic Affairs is grateful to Professor Rodríguez for going above and beyond, working across disciplines with faculty, and mentoring students engaged in scholarly research and publishing, and for helping to make the HEAT grant a success.