With nearly 70 confirmed student participants plus faculty and staff, the University of Guam will be sending a record number delegation to the 2026 National Diversity in STEM Conference (NDiSTEM) hosted by the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), taking place this October in Long Beach, California.
This marks the biggest delegation UOG has taken to the conference in its nine-year history of attending.
This year’s delegation consists of students, faculty, and researchers who represent and are supported by numerous grant funders. These include Guam NSF EPSCoR E-CORE, NSF INCLUDES, Navigating Home, Alfred P. Sloan Grant, Next-Gen COMPASS, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).
The group gathered for the first time all together at the Near Peer mentorship session – a monthly meeting conducted by Cheryl Sangueza, Ph.D., co-principal investigator for E-CORE, that allows student researchers the opportunity to share experiences and insights with their peers on how their program is going. While the Near Peer sessions are usually for undergraduates in the EPSCoR Student Research Experience (SRE), the fall season turns these into SACNAS Near Peer sessions to have ample prep for the upcoming conference.
“We travel as a delegation,” Sangueza describes. “We like seeing each other, we like hanging out with each other, so you feel a sense of belonging and connection because we’re representing Guam, our region, and UOG.”
Sangueza used the rest of the session to describe the dos and don’ts of traveling within a university delegation, specifying roles and expectations for student travelers, group leads (often assigned to students who have attended SACNAS in the past), and faculty mentors. The conference schedule was described in detail; free days included, as well as accommodations and transportation. Past-SACNAS attendees also shared insights with newcomers.
Guam NSF EPSCoR GECCO SRE Nico Ubaldo, who attended SACNAS 2025 in Columbus, Ohio, recalled “us talking about things to expect and practicing things like our elevator greetings to people… ways to engage for other people, how to connect with other people as well.” PNNL intern and SACNAS 2025 attendee Kaitlyn Punzalan touched on the importance of prepping as much as one can while still in Guam, stating that “getting the SACNAS app, as well as other apps like Uber, which I would suggest you set up before you leave because they need to text you while you’re here.”
The delegation will meet one or two more times for a SACNAS Near Peer before leaving on October 27. One session will invite family members or support systems of attendees to give their loved ones an idea of what they’re diving into for this significant milestone in their student research experience at UOG.
“Students do amazing things, and half the time parents and families don’t know what they’re doing,” Sangueza explains. “So this is a time where we really brag about the conference and the value and the importance of you folks showing up to this conference.”