April Lujan, a student in the Manufacturing Technology program at the School of Applied Technologies, received an NSF Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Student Award for Excellence at “Technicians in the Green Economy: Sixteenth National ATE Principal Investigators Conference,” held Oct. 21-23 in Washington, DC. She was among 65 students from 37 schools across the country who presented their work at the conference.
April is nearing completion of an associate’s degree in manufacturing technology with a concentration in MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems), a manufacturing technology involving components and systems that are very small (less than 1 millimeter) but larger than those used in nanotechnology. Everyday applications of MEMS systems include inkjet printers, airbag sensors, digital cameras, video game controllers, medical devices, cell phones and many other technologies.
A non-traditional student, April came to Albuquerque from the Tohlakai Navajo Reservation north of Gallup. She is the mother of four children (ages 2 to 9), and has been attending CNM part- or full-time since 2004. She is also a work-study employee in the School of Applied Technologies.
She says she was always interested in science and art, influenced by competing with her brothers for success in school. April enjoys working in the clean room, designing and building micro devices. Her career ambition is to work for a high-tech company like Apple Computers, where she would be able to learn from the best.
