Directors
Marketing
**Vacant
Professional Development
**Vacant
Vice-Regional Student Representatives
North Texas Subregion
Juan David Bravo
Juan David Bravo is a 5th year Electrical and Computer Engineering Major at the University of Texas at Austin. He was born in Bogota, Colombia, and moved to McAllen, TX in 2009. He has been involved with SHPE for 4 years and looks forward to remain involved with the organization after graduation. Last year, he served as the Vice President of the UT-SHPE chapter. He has held leadership positions in other organizations like Model United Nations, and National Hispanic Institute; however, he considers SHPE as the most important one. He hopes to change the lives of other Hispanics, and encourage others to pursuit a STEM career.
South Texas Subregion
Luisa Florez
Luisa Florez holds a B.S. in Geosystems Engineering and Hydrogeology and a B.A. in Anthropology from The University of Texas at Austin. She is a current post-baccalaureate civil engineering student at the University of Houston and is looking forward to continuing her education with a M.S. in Water Resources Engineering, Hydrology or Fluvial Geomorphology this coming spring. She has been involved in the SHPE familia since 2012 and is excited to work with the Region 5 student chapters this year as Vice-RSR. Luisa is also a writer for SHPE Region 5. You can read her work at http://region5.shpe.org/blog/. In her free time, Luisa enjoys traveling, yoga, and listening to podcasts.
East Texas Subregion
Gilberto Arizpe
My name is Gilberto Arizpe, senior Electrical Engineering major at Texas A&M University. I am from Del Rio, TX, a small town on the border where I was born and raised. I have had the opportunity to intern twice in the field of industrial controls and automation. I enjoy playing sports and the outdoors, and have a passion for STEM education in K-12. I have been involved 4 years in SHPE, starting as a representative to being President last year. SHPE has given me the opportunity to grow personally and professionally, and experience the support of a famila away from home. I am passionate about STEM and the opportunity for students. I hope to contribute to the growing success of our SHPE familia with my experience as a student and a dedicated SHPE member.
West/Central Texas Subregion
Lucia Natalia Galvan
Natalia is a senior in Biochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. She was born and raised in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico and moved to Austin at age 18 for college. She hopes to focus her career in pharmaceutical research or medicinal chemistry. She joined the SHPE chapter at UT at the end of her sophomore year and 6 months after joining SHPE, Natalia became Events and Community Service coordinator for the 2016-2017 school year. As VRSR she hopes to get to know and engage with all the chapters in the West Texas sub-region, as well as ensue collaboration and support among all of Region 5. Her main goal is to contribute to the success of the Region 5 chapters and to promote STEM awareness for Hispanics to become leaders and innovators.
OK/AR Subregion
Evelin Lopez
I am a first generation college senior studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Tulsa. Originally from Pasadena, California I moved to Oklahoma City during elementary school and graduated as salutatorian of my high school class. Last year I was Chapter President at TU and currently hold the position of SHPE Jr. Representative. With the help of the NDC committee I hope to establish TU SHPE's first SHPE Jr. Chapter in the neighboring high school. This summer I interned at UTC Aerospace Systems in Fort Worth, Texas as a Manufacturing Intern, specifically working on Landing Gear for F-15 fighter jets. I recently co-founded a student club called Niñas in STEM tailored for 3rd graders to encourage and expand their knowledge and interest in the sciences. I look forward to serving the Region 5 Lobos and continuing the familia unity across the region.
LA/MS Subregion
Manuel Donati Malave
Hi, my name is Manuel Donati Malave, I am studying Electrical Engineering at the University of Houston, and I am currently in my Junior year. I was born in Caracas Venezuela, I lived there for 19 years. I moved to Houston, Texas about 5 years ago. My passion for Engineering started when my father gave me my first construction set game Meccano, then later on he gave me an electronics lab kit which started my passion for Electrical Engineering. I consider myself a very enthusiastic person, I love helping other with basically anything.
AL/TN Subregion
Laura Ferrer
Laura Maria Ferrer is a Senior majoring in Civil Engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. She was born in Barranquilla, Colombia and grew up in Martin, TN. Laura has been heavily involved in diversity programs at UTK, including the Tennessee Louis Stokes Association for Minority Participation, STEAM Minority Mentoring Program, and National Society of Black Engineers. She has been an active SHPE member for four years and has held three different officer positions. Laura has participated in undergraduate geotechnical research at UTK and a sustainable energy REU program at Texas A&M University of Kingsville. She will graduate after completing her third co-op rotation with Southern Company. As Alabama/Tennessee Vice Regional Student Representative, Laura hopes to fairly represent and inspire smaller chapters in her sub-region.
Regional Junior Team
Carlos Ramirez
Regional Jr. Representative
Gloria Galvan
Director of Quality
Marketing Team
Director of Content & Social Media
Chaitanya Bala
Chaitanya (Chai) Bala always had a passion for writing and playing around with Photoshop from the time she was a teenager. When she took a marketing/advertising class back in high school, she fell in love with the creative side of marketing, and went on to study that in undergrad. After working in social media marketing and doing some graphic design freelancing on the side for 3 years, she has come back to school and is now pursuing her MBA at The Ohio State University, while volunteering for SHPE on the side.
Instagram Coordinator
Miguel Angeles
Hi, my name is Miguel Angeles and I am currently pursuing my undergrad in Industrial Engineering at The University of Texas at Arlington. I serve as the Academic Chair for The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) at UT Arlington.
As a STEM advocate, I absolutely love volunteering to promote STEM with younger students. I've had the honor to assist with local chapters such as Trimble Tech SHPE JR, UTA, UTD, TCU, LM Aero and SHPE DFW. I was also fortunate to intern right after my freshmen year at InterConnect Wiring as a Planning Engineer.
Through SHPE, I found a passion for working with students especially mentoring high school students to continue education and professional development. I truly believe that being in SHPE I've learned that we just don't make engineers, but we create Leaders.
(In the future, I want to pursue an MBA from the College of Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania.)
Webmaster
Alejandro Davila
Alejandro is a senior majoring in Computer Science and pursuing a Master's in Software Engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso. He interned at Cummins as a Web Application Support Intern in 2017, at Palantir Technologies as a Forward Deployed Software Engineer in 2018, and will go back to Palantir for next summer. He is passionate about coding and helping increase the number of Hispanics in tech companies. He created a thorough guide called Getting Your First Software Engineering Internship/Job that he hopes will help many students get into the tech industry.
