2025 Great Minds in STEM Conference
Seven Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (TAMU-CC) Computer Science Islanders proudly represented the university at the Great Minds in STEM (GMiS) Conference in San Diego, California on Oct. 2-4. Not only did they showcase Islander excellence on a national stage, but they also returned to Corpus Christi with an impressive collection of awards.
The group that traveled to this conference included faculty members Dr. Scott King, Lewis Heuermann, and Dr. Carlos Rubio-Medrano, and students Jennifer Mondragon ’27, Jacob Hopkins ’27, Malak Mahdy ’25, and Angela Franco ’26. At the conference, Islanders participated in a series of events and competitions organized by the Computer Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions (CAHSI), an organization that TAMU-CC is a founding partner of since 2007.
Mondragon, an Islander working on her Ph.D. in Computer Science, serves as a CAHSI Advocate Training Lead. She attended the conference to lead a workshop on how to create a sense of belonging among students in computer science organizations. She was also recognized as a CAHSI- Google Distinguished Scholar, an award honoring students who make an impact in their communities by volunteering their time and serving underrepresented populations.
Another Student, Mahdy, participated in and placed second in the data analytics competition at the GMiS Conference. For this competition, Mahdy teamed up with two students from other universities to train a machine learning model to help them predict how much energy a solar panel would generate. The teams were given a set of data points and two hours to create the most accurate outcome from their machine learning model. Mahdy’s team scored 0.98 out of 0.99, missing first place by only a few decimal points.
The last group of winning Islanders included Heuermann and Hopkins. They teamed up with a student from the University of Texas at El Paso and took the gold in the Cybersecurity Hackathon at the GMiS Conference.
This group of Islanders set out to California ready to learn, grow, and build community with peers from other Hispanic-Serving Institutions — and they returned as champions in multiple events. Our Computer Science Islanders continue to excel, achieving new milestones and representing TAMU-CC in remarkable ways.