Board # 131 : S-STEM Scholarship Program at UNC Pembroke: a COMPASS for Science Majors

Dr. Santisteban is an Associate Professor in the Biology Department at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, a position she has held since 2013. She was an Assistant Professor at the same institution from 2007. Dr. Santisteban teaches Microbiology, Cell Biology, and Molecular Biology. Dr. Santisteban, a native of Spain, earned her B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of the Basque Country in Spain. She then went to the Université Joseph Fourier in France where she completed her DEA (Diplome d’Études Approfondies, the equivalent of a Masters) and her PhD in Cellular Biology. Under the supervision of Gérald Brugal she worked on the chromatin structure/function relationship using image cytometry methods. For her postdoctoral studies, Dr. Santisteban went to Dr. Mitchell Smith’s laboratory in the Microbiology Department at the University of Virginia, working in the field of Yeast Molecular Genetics. She became an Assistant Professor of Research at the same institution and remained there till her appointment at UNC Pembroke. Dr. Santisteban continues to work with the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism. Her research focuses on the role the histone H2A.Z variant in regulating gene expression and she involves undergraduate students in her research. Dr. Santisteban is the PI in a NSF funded S-STEM program at UNC Pembroke, title COMPASS (Creating Opportunities for Students in Science). The current funding period is 2014-2019. She is also involved in K-12 education through her role as district director of the NC Student Academy of Science and as a facilitator of teacher development workshops for the Moore county schools through an MSP grant. Dr. Santisteban has been very involved with the North Carolina Academy of Science that she joined in 2008, and has served under various roles. She initially served two years as an elected member of the Board. Then she served in the 2011 Annual Meeting Committee. She was vice-president in 2011-2012. In 2013 she organized the 110th North Carolina Academy of Science (NCAS) Annual Meeting that was held at UNCP and she was chair of the local arrangements committee. She was president-elect in 2014-2015, and president of the Academy in 20162017. She is currently serving as past-president. Dr. Santisteban is a member of the editorial board of the KBM Journal of Biology and the advisory board of the KBM Scientific Publishing, LP. She is a member of the GCAT (Genome Consortium for Active Teaching) and served in the years 2012-2014 as a member of the GCAT advisory board, whose mission was to recruit faculty from minority serving institutions for the synthetic biology NSF funded summer workshops. She has served as a reviewer in four NSF panels (three REUs, one PRFB). She is also a member of the Genomics Education Partnership (GEP), a collaborative between a growing number (about 100 currently) of primarily undergraduate institutions, and the Biology Department and the McDonnell Genome Institute of Washington University in St. Louis. The goal of the GEP is to provide opportunities for undergraduate students to participate in genomics research.