President's Outstanding Graduate Award

Aidelen Montoya, is completing her bachelor’s degree this month as a special major.

 

Aidelen crafted her own program that brings together her interests in management and art history. Aidelen’s degree title “Special Major in Studio Art, Museum Studies, and Theory” only scratches the surface of her interdisciplinary and community-engaged accomplishments. Aidelen is a TRIO McNair Scholar who has been accepted into multiple competitive graduate programs. Aidelen integrates themes of climate justice into her art. Her research and creative activities utilize creative data visualizations for education that encompasses inclusive climate awareness and intersectional social justice issues. She is an original thinker who crosses boundaries between physical science and the arts with a mind for practical situations such as improving museum sustainability and K-12 education.

 

Aidelen has made the most of her time and education here at CSUSM. She has sought out all the opportunities available to her on campus. In addition to her work with Professor Lucy HG Solomon over the past two years, Aidelen has worked in the Data and Transdisciplinary Art Lab where she integrated her research and beautifully beaded artwork. She was selected as one of nine students of color in the Planet Mentorship pilot, a joint project of the Office of Inclusive Excellence, Center Artes, and Sustainability. As a Planet Change Maker, Aidelen conducted careful research resulting in a beaded data visualization that addresses environmental issues through a social justice lens. At last year’s undergraduate and graduate research symposium, Aidelen presented her research on changing coastlines in the Philippines and discussed her filipinx identity, both of which informed her series of beaded maps of impacted coastal areas that incorporates traditional beading from the Philippines. Aidelen also shared this work at the CSUSM Clim`ate Teach-in where she was one of a handful of students who presented alongside faculty. Based on the quality of this presentation, Aidelen was invited to join Lucy HG Solomon at a prestigious residency on Volcan Mountain, which led to a public exhibition of her work alongside other artists. Aidelen also won the Best Oral Talk in the Humanities in the Gabriel E. Gallardo Research, Student Leadership & Advocacy Symposium at the University of Washington.