This Teen Helped Native American Students Earn Ham Radio Licenses

For many high school students, summer vacation is a time to unplug. For Ruchira Shree, a rising sophomore at West Windsor–Plainsboro High School South, in New Jersey, the break allows her to ramp up her extracurricular pursuits. Much of her time is spent assisting with IEEE Princeton Central Jersey Section activities. She got involved with the PCJS because of her mother, IEEE Senior Member Shubha Bommalingaiahnapallya, who is the section’s vice chair. Bommalingaiahnapallya is a principal engineer at Intel. “I started going to the IEEE meetings when I was little,” Shree says. “I used to go with my mom and just sit in the back of the room.” This summer she says she’s focusing on improving her mathematics skills by attending the Program in Algorithmic and Combinatorial Thinking summer course on math and computer science. She wants to qualify for the American Invitational Mathematics Examination, an event for the top American Mathematics Competitions scorers. She earned a place on the AMC 8 honor roll—a recognition awarded to the top 1 percent of participants in the national competition—when she was in seventh grade. Shree’s IEEE involvement and her advanced math skills caught the attention of an internship recruiter for the Alliance for Indigenous Math Circles, a group dedicated to expanding STEM opportunities for Native American students. The AIMC organizes and sponsors weeklong overnight camps. Interns assist with activities and teach some of the sessions. Shree met a recruiter at one of the section’s events, and she interned at one of the camps last year. The IEEE-math camp connection Shree’s involvement with the PCJS evolved naturally as she got older, she says, along the way preparing name badges and tackling similar assignments. She met Francis O’Connell, an IEEE life senior member and founder of FXO, in Plainsboro, N.J. O’Connell is the treasurer of the IEEE Integrated STEM in Education Conference (ISEC). He has been a mentor to Shree for the past two years, he says. At last year’s ISEC, she assisted at the registration desk and met Harini Frederickson, an AIMC intern recruiter for New Jersey. Frederickson invited Shree, along with nine other students, to volunteer at an upcoming camp being held in Santa Fe, N.M. “Ruchira is a real go-getter,” Frederickson says. “When she has an idea, she follows through and doesn’t get easily discouraged.” The AIMC was created to address an important need, says math teacher Donna Fernandez, codirector of the organization. U.S. Indigenous students have the lowest rate of pursuing STEM studies across all demographics, according to the U.S. National Science Foundation. Systemic barriers such as a lack of role models in STEM fields, socioeconomic inequities, and Eurocentric teaching frameworks are some of the reasons, Rechel Shrisunder and Dwight Figueiredo wrote in a chapter of Minorities: New Challenges and Horizons, a book edited by John R. Hermann. Indigenous people have a long tradition of mathematics, Fernandez says. She cites the Navajo code talkers from World War II as examples. The Navajo, along with 14 other Indigenous tribes, used their native languages to code and transmit critical messages for the U.S. military during the war. There was a student at camp whose grandfather was a code talker, Shree says. Navajo people also use math to build hogans: conical dwellings that require precise calculations to construct. Native communities have used math when building the structures for centuries, Fernandez says. Fernandez believes typical classroom math curricula overlook the importance of mathematics in Indigenous cultures. Combining STEM activities with cultural elements helps Indigenous students better understand their ancestors’ role as mathematicians, she says. That, in turn, helps the students see themselves in those careers, she adds. The AIMC was built upon a program already in place: the Navajo Nation Math Circles, founded in 2012 by three university professors. Their goal was to provide the Navajo Nation’s students with tools to overcome barriers to STEM education. To expand the math circle program, the AIMC was added to reach Indigenous students in the Four Corners area of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. Since 2017, the organization has run two camps every year at the Navajo Preparatory School in Farmington, N.M. In 2025 one camp was moved to the Santa Fe Indian School. During each weeklong event, students and interns work in math circles. It’s a cooperative way to solve problems creatively, organizers say. Students collaborate on STEM-focused projects and learn from Indigenous STEM professionals. Interns also get the opportunity to experience an off-site cultural event. The camps are free for students, thanks to sponsorships and donations. Teachers and interns cover their own travel expenses. Shree secured a US $1,500 sponsorship grant through the PCJS. Building relationships through STEM activities Relationships are an influential part of the week

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