Diné College faculty and students joined other Tribal Colleges and University participants to showcase their research work during NSF-TCUP research symposium held at Alexandria, VA during February 28 -29, 2024.

The TCUP Research Symposium is an investment in future of indigenous nations that is assisting and supporting tribal nations and tribal leaders in decision making to best serve their communities. Overall, there were one oral presentation and two poster presentations from Diné College’s School of STEM, Hakim’s Lab. Dr. Shazia Hakim, talked about “Decision Support for Agricultural Reuse of Municipal Wastewater Effluent” the research work is being supported by a USDA-NIFA-TCRGP grant award. While, two Graduate students from Hakim’s lab presented their work entitled “Antimicrobial effects of Sage (Artemisia tiripartita, and Artemisia trifida) against Candida albicans, E. coli and S. aureus spp” by Faylene Begay, and “Revitalizing Water Resources for Safe Drinking in Off-grid Communities of the Navajo Nation” by Neilroy Singer.

Dr. Hakim served as Judge at ABRCMS conference 2023 in Microbiology and Immunology categories, held at Phoenix Convention Center, Phoenix, AZ during November 15 – 19, 2023

MS Students Neilroy Singer, Kaitlan James, Faylene Begay and Harrison Cayatineto who received support resolutions from Tuba City chapter house and Western Navajo Agency Council presented their work to Navajo Nation Human Research Review Board (NNHRRB) in October 2023 and got approvals to conduct their research. These students are expected to graduate in fall of 2024 while other 02 students Ian Nez and Dorothea Wheeler are currently completing their course work and developing their research protocols to start doing their presentations for resolution support in spring 2024.

There are 03 Honor scholars students Maya Begay, Jeriah Boyd and Erin Cleveland; who have started taking 500 level courses and soon will start working on designing their MS projects.

Neilroy Singer did his research poster and oral presentation  entitled “Efforts to acquire purified natural water of drinking quality in off grid communities of Navajo Nation”,   during NSF-TCUP Symposium (August 8 - 10, 2023) held at NSF headquarter, Alexandria, VA.

Dr. Hakim did poster and oral presentation to share her work on “Regular Bacterial Analyses of Local Water Resources: A Possible Way to Foster Healthier off Grid Communities” at NSF-TCUP Symposium (August 8 - 10, 2023) held at NSF headquarter, Alexandria, VA as co-investigator under “Water is Life” project sponsored by NSF-TCUP grant award.

Dr. Hakim was invited as Key Note Speaker to deliver a lecture entitled “Sustainable Approaches to Overcome Water Scarcity” in the 14th International Biennial Conference of Pakistan Society for Microbiology, held during November 22-24, 2023 at Salim Habib University, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.

Dr. Hakim presented her research poster entitled “How We Can Adopt Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS) For the Human Well-being, And Sustainability Within Underserved Communities" at ASM-Microbe, 2023 conference held during June 14-19, 2023 at Houston, Texas

Maya Begay presented her research poster entitled “Unregulated Water Resources a Threat to Human Health” at ASM-Microbe, 2023 conference held during June 14-19, 2023 at Houston, Texas

Neilroy Singer presented his research poster entitled “Restoring Natural Water to Potable Quality in Off-grid Areas on Navajo Nation” at ASM-Microbe, 2023 conference held during June 14-19, 2023 at Houston, Texas

Faylene Begay presented her research poster entitled “Antimicrobial effect of Sage (Artemisia tiripartita, and Artemisia trifida) against Candida albicans, E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus spp.” at ASM-Microbe, 2023 conference held during June 14-19, 2023 at Houston, Texas

Tori Fulton presented her research poster entitled “Water Quality Impacts on the Rural Communities of Southwest” at ASM-Microbe, 2023 conference held during June 14-19, 2023 at Houston, Texas

Kaitlan James presented her research poster entitled Patterns of Antimicrobial activity from Soil bacteria isolated from Navajo Land at ASM-Microbe, 2023 conference held during June 14-19, 2023 at Houston, Texas

Matthew Begay presented his research poster entitled “Understanding the Potential Effects of Microbial Contamination on the Digestive Health of Navajo Communities” at ASM-Microbe, 2023 conference held during June 14-19, 2023 at Houston, Texas

April Begay presented her research poster entitled “How? Frequent Bacterial analysis of local water resources, can lead healthy communities” at ASM-Microbe, 2023 conference held during June 14-19, 2023 at Houston, Texas 

Tori Fulton did a Rapid Fire Talk at ASM-Microbe 2023, June 14-19 at Houston Convention Center, Houston, TX on her research entitled “Water Quality Impacts on the Rural Communities of Southwest”

Harrison Cayatineto presented his research vial poster and oral presentation entitled “microRNA Based Inhibition of Nucleocapsid Synthesis in Bovine Viral Diarrhoea Virus: a surrogate model for Hepatitis C Virus” at AIHEC 2023 Student Conference, Albuquerque, NM

Dr. Hakim was invited as Key Note Speaker and Session Chair at IBRAS (3rd International Conference on Biological Research and Applied Science) held during January 17 – 19, 2023, in Karachi, Pakistan. She talked about “Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHAN): a solution for human wellbeing and sustainability”

Matthew Begay presented his research poster entitled “Understanding the Possible role of    Microbial Contamination in Digestive Health of Navajo Communities”.at Annual Meeting of American Society for Microbiology for minoritized communities-ABRCMS-  2022, (November, 2022), held in Anaheim, California.

April Begay presented her research poster entitled “Bacterial contaminants in water resource: a possible source of Gastric Disorders”, at Annual Meeting of American Society for Microbiology for minoritized communities “ABRCMS- 2022, (November, 2022), held in Anaheim, California.

On September 09, 2022: Dr. Hakim, Ms. Litson and student interns participated in "Part IV of Land Grant University Series: FAS JPAC Event with Diné College, a 1994 LG Institution", organized by USDA virtually to present what our student interns are learning through this opportunity. https://www.dinecollege.edu/about_dc/nifa-usda-tcrgp-internship/