By Siri Doddapaneni
The new year brought a new group of leaders to head JuSTEMagine. Co-founder and president Jack Cenovic explained that selecting the new board members was a very rigorous process, but he believes that JuSTEMagine is in great hands and is excited that so many people are enthusiastic about the importance of JuSTEMagine’s mission to
spread STEM and SEL learning.
Taking over the position of president is Claire Cenovic, who was secretary and Director of Outreach for JuSTEMagine in 2021. Claire stated “I could not be more excited to step into the role of President because it will allow JuSTEMagine to reach even more people and expand our projects even further. Our 2022-2023 Board has so many ideas regarding the ways in which JuSTEMagine can expand, and I am excited to explore all of them.” and has shared her enjoyment of watching JuSTEMagine grow throughout the years. Another thing Claire has to combat is COVID, but she has remained optimistic and explained the COVID has allowed JuSTEMagine to expand even further online. She also plans to continue to host events and create partnerships over online platforms. Congratulations and good luck Claire!
This year, our leaving board chose two people for the position of vice president, Amuda Balu and Francesca Vidal, and both were deemed very worthy candidates to take over this role. Co-vice president Amuda Balu expressed her excitement for being selected for this role and explained that she wants to help JuSTEMagine expand to be even bigger than it is and impact people in various communities to stimulate even more growth through volunteering and new initiatives. Amuda stated “While everyone within JuSTEmagine has their own tasks and projects, I think it's important that we discuss what we've been doing and cooperate to make sure everything is running smoothly. Some other important traits I think a board member should have is responsibility and time management. This way, what everyone is supposed to get done is done and the organization can continue to grow.” Amuda, now a senior, hopes to take what she learned about cooperation last year as Chapter Coordinator and implement it into her current work to grow and establish new partnerships.
The Director of Legislative Advocacy, being taken up by Aanya Mishra, is a relatively new position added to JuSTEMagine in the past year to speak up for STEM inequality. Aanya explained that growing up, she had seen the inequalities in the STEM field, and this position gives her the ability to make sure no other student has a poor STEM experience. “This is something I'm very passionate about and I never turn down an opportunity like that. I like all the hands-on work I have to look forward to as legislative advocacy director.” said Aanya.
Taking over the role of Director of Technology are Swayam Kontamwar and Riddhi Munjewar. Co-director of technology Swayam Kontamwar explained that he is willing to use his personal experiences to impact his work. He expressed the different issues he has seen affect the community through tech infrastructure, online learning, and internet availability, and he is running a program at DoSpace to teach programming fundamentals, where he is reminded of the impact of it all. Swayam wants to use the size and resources of JuSTEMagine to further his work. He stated, "I have a lot of experience with machine learning, and making a project using it to try and predict future issues with education or tech in the community, I think, would be a great place to start. From there, I simply want to keep learning and advancing my skill with new tech and use it whenever I can, as advantageously as I can.”
The most common trait our new board members have is the ambition to expand JuSTEMagine across the country, and this group of leaders certainly paint the future of JuSTEMagine bright. We greatly appreciate the foundation laid by our past board members, and we hope to use all our resources to impact the community in the biggest way possible. Congratulations to the JuSTEMagine 2022-2023 board members!
(Part 2 coming soon!)
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