IUP Values Me
Student Spotlight: Khalil Nobles
Khalil is a physics major with a mathematics minor and will graduate this year. He served on the President’s Commission on Diversity and Inclusion and is a member of IUP-NAACP, UBORA Men of IUP, the Physics Club, and the Bowling Club. He works as a content creation career development advocate for the Career and Professional Development Center. Khalil is a Promising Scholar and a recipient of the African American Alumni Scholarship, the William and Audrey Madia Scholarship, and a Certificate of Academic Achievement in Physics. He has consistently been named to the Dean’s List. Khalil took part in IUP’s Undergraduate Summer Opportunity for Applying Research (U-SOAR) program, which offers students the chance to participate in cutting-edge research, scholarship, and creative discovery. He served as a lab assistant for the IUP Research Institute, and his project was to analytically and experimentally research the added mass effect of rising bubbles in water. During this experience, Khalil managed data acquisition and the improvement of the experimental setup, furthered his knowledge of analytical software, and recorded, graphed, and analyzed up to 18 rising bubble trajectories per week. Khalil will pursue a career in nanotechnology engineering upon graduation. We thank you, Khalil!
Staff Spotlight: Ricardo Cortez
Ricardo is a master sergeant and serves as the senior military instructor for the Department of Military Science. He is specifically responsible for teaching, counseling, and mentoring freshman cadets, and he takes the lead in ensuring the welfare, morale, and culture of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program as a whole. Ricardo is particularly effective at engaging students from diverse backgrounds and providing sound counsel and advice. His supervisor describes him as a great asset to the program who truly cares about students and who, as a positive role model, is excellent at motivating students to improve themselves. Having grown up in an inner city, he is able to empathize with and relate to students who are struggling to adjust to college life in a more rural area. Ricardo individually counsels the more than 30 freshman cadets at the beginning of each semester and throughout the year as the need arises. We thank you, Ricardo!
A note about IUP Values Me: Each week, we highlight one student and one staff member to “shine a spotlight” on their leadership and involvement in campus programs and their great work assisting our campus community with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and/or civil rights awareness. If you have a suggestion for an IUP community member to feature in this section, please email social-equity@iup.edu.
