Jafeth Sanchez, Ph.D., and Ruben Dagda, Ph.D., bring more than academic expertise to an initiative designed to spark interest in careers in health and medicine among English-Spanish bilingual high school students in northern Nevada’s Lyon County.

For Sanchez, it wasn’t all that long ago, after all, that she, a Mexican immigrant, herself was a bilingual student at Yerington High School, where she dreamed of becoming a first-generation undergraduate at the University of Nevada, Reno.

After earning three degrees from the University, Sanchez now is among the leaders of a team that received a five-year, $1.25 million federal grant to encourage bilingual Lyon County students to give a close look to careers in health, medicine and other fields related to science, technology, engineering and math.

High school students across largely rural Lyon County, their parents and their high school counselors will be supported by the Science Education Partnership Award (5R25MD019151) granted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the University’s Latino Research Center and School of Medicine.

It’s one of only 12 similar programs across the United States, and the only one in Nevada.

Sanchez, who serves as co-principal investigator in the NIH-funded program, is director of the Latino Research Center and associate professor of educational leadership in the University’s College of Education & Human Development. She’s joined by Ruben Dagda, Ph.D., associate professor of pharmacology in the University’s School of Medicine, as co-principal investigator, who was instrumental in leading the first iteration of the program since 2017.

An expansion of an existing program known as “Community of Bilingual English Speakers: Exploring Issues in Science and Health,” the newly funded initiative provides an intensive 17-month program that introduces up to 32 bilingual students a year from Lyon County to careers in fields ranging from technology and clinical research to community health services and engineering.

Even though 27.5 percent of Nevada’s residents identify themselves as Hispanic, Sanchez explained, less than 5 percent of the state’s physicians identify as Latinx. Those figures spotlight the need for increased diversity in Nevada’s healthcare and science workforce, particularly in rural areas.

A highlight of the experience for the students will be a three-week-long summer session. During that session, they’ll spend a week at the University, live in campus housing, attend classes, conduct research projects including developing community-engaged projects, attend tours of anatomical labs and research core facilities at the medical school and work closely with bilingual STEM and pre-med undergraduate students from the University who serve as mentors. 

During the school year, participants undertake well-defined research projects and learn to communicate their findings.

In the meantime, the program works with students’ parents to build understanding of careers STEM and health. Parents also will learn how to support students who plan to attend college after high school.

A third element of the program focuses on high school counselors, improving their ability to guide students into the high school courses and college enrollments that open the door to health and science careers.

The involvement of parents and high school counselors, as well as the focus on students from rural communities, represent new elements in the program. Results from all three elements of the program will be tracked closely and will be made available to design similar programs in other programs across the United States.

The original Community of Bilingual English Speakers program was launched in 2017 through a grant from National Institutes of Health. Results from that work have allowed fine-tuning of the new initiative, Sanchez said.

Joining Sanchez and Dagda as co-investigators of the program are Lynda Wiest, Ph.D., a professor of mathematics and educational equity who serves as chair of the University’s Department of Educational Studies, Jacque Ewing Taylor, Ph.D., an emeritus faculty member, and Mandi Collins, Ph.D., director of the STEM Raggio Research Center.

For Sanchez, the program completes a circle that includes the undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees she earned from the University after her graduation from Yerington High School.

“It’s exciting to be able to bring such resources and give back to my hometown community,” Sanchez said.