WSGC Student Spotlight: Rene Chavez
Sophomore
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Major: Geoscience
Congratulations to this week’s #WSGCStudentSpotlight, Rene Chavez! Rene is the recipient of a STEM Bridge Scholarship award and is currently a sophomore studying Geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
In his first semester at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Rene conducted research under Scott Schaefer, presenting “Quantifying Regionally-derived Sedimentary Rocks in Pleistocene Oak Creek Formation Glacial Till” at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR). Currently, Rene is working with the Thomas A. Greene Museum to catalog the fossils in their collection. He plans to focus his studies on either planetary geology or hydrogeology before pursuing a career in Geosciences.
Recently, Rene was been involved with space-related studies through the GO FoRWARD (Geoscience Opportunities with Fossils, Rocks, and Water to Attract Under-Represented Discoverers) offered at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he mentored college students of all grade levels in the basics of geoscience. Through this program, Rene and others were able to skype call Darian Dixon, a UW-Milwaukee alumnus and NASA Missions Operations Specialist who works with the Mars rover, Curiosity, and talk about the importance geoscience has in studying other planets. This sparked Rene’s interest in the connections between geoscience and space, and he has since been looking at different opportunities for a program that deals with both.
Congratulations Rene, and best of luck to you in your future!
