Congratulations to the FCSAA Publications Division Student of the Month for November... Daphnie Velasquez from Miami Dade College Eduardo J. Padron Campus! Daphnie was nominated by her advisor, Emily Sendin.

Here's what Emily shared with us about Daphnie: "Daphnie Velasquez joined Urbana in Fall of 2021 and thus far has made significant contributions to the team. As the hybrid magazine’s webmaster, Daphnie took on the challenging task of curating the Hispanic Heritage month Latinx Online Gallery where we featured a variety of works of Latinx artists from volume 14. Daphnie incorporated a user-friendly yet engaging webpage for the hybrid community. She continues to actively update the web and improve it by offering her unique perspective and expertise. In addition, Daphnie has created several new pages for the website in interactive formats. She intends to effectively incorporate her digital design skills learned at a very young age in Nicaragua. After arriving in the United States and before joining Urbana, she never had the opportunity to put her skills to practice. Now as Urbana's webmaster she has the creative freedom to test and improve her skills.

As a freshman student at the MDC Eduardo J. Padrón Campus, Daphnie Velasquez was awarded the “Rising Star” and the “Most Enthusiastic” awards for demonstrating excellence in contributing to volunteer activities. Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, she volunteered in a vaccination campaign as part of the effort to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines to 500 elderly residents of Little Havana. In addition, she was honored as the SGA Senator of the Month and the TriBeta Biological Honor Society Member of the Month. Lastly, as a research assistant at the University of Florida, she was awarded the “Top Presentation” at the Microbiology and Cell Sciences Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium. In the presentation, she showcased the results she obtained screening essential and mineral oils as biorational pesticides to control the avocado-lace bug. Through her leadership position as president of the TriBeta Biological Honor Society, Daphnie Velasquez has developed numerous activities to support the Sebastian Strong Foundation with the goal to encourage and influence youths from the Padrón Campus to cooperate and support initiatives that raise awareness of the importance of finding less toxic cures for pediatric cancer. In addition, she affiliated with the Women's Breast & Heart Initiative to lead and organize volunteer groups to spread life-saving information and practices for women to beat the odds of breast cancer and heart disease. TriBeta served as an advocate to more than 300 women at the 5K Pink Walk. Daphnie is a change-making scholar who recently participated in the IREX and Stevens Initiative Global Solutions binational conversations with Miami Dade College and Komar University of Science and Technology in Iraq tackling problems and finding solutions for global issues."

Congratulations again to Daphnie Velasquez, our Publications Student of the Month, and thank you to Ms. Sendin for nominating her!