In early December, students in Dr. Jessica Black’s Environmental Science 101 class at Heritage University were wrapping up a semester-long, self-directed research project using red wiggler worms. One student was testing the impact of flooding, another the effects of wildfire ash.

      “I told the students there were no ‘right answers,’ which is uncomfortable at first—but then it’s liberating,” Black, Class of ’94, says. “Rather than memorizing steps of the scientific method, they’re actually practicing science from their first class—asking questions, testing hypotheses, grappling with real data.”

      Heritage is an open access, nonprofit, private university surrounded by the Yakama Indian Reservation in Toppenish, Washington, where 11% of students identify as Native American and 73% as Hispanic. Black, who is Mexican American and has a Ph.D. in geological sciences from the University of Colorado Boulder, has also served as Heritage’s director of the Center for Indigenous Health, Culture & the Environment since 2016.

      “We support and develop Indigenous students as researchers and undertake community-based initiatives, both regionally and globally,” Black explains. The Center’s research projects are designed to connect students directly with community concerns.

      “In the Yakima Valley, environmental justice challenges surround us—pesticide and herbicide exposure, concentrated animal feeding operations, nitrate-contaminated drinking water, and increasingly severe wildfire smoke,” she says. “When students research issues directly affecting their families and communities, their engagement deepens.”

      The work isn’t just theoretical. When an invasive fruit fly was detected in culturally significant huckleberry fields around Mount Adams, Black built a student-driven research initiative to track it. She secured grants and coordinated with Tribal wildlife experts from the Yakama Nation and regional academic partners.

      “Different departments within the Yakama Nation will use the students’ data to formulate ways to address the problem,” she says. “The community really embraced this project.”

      Black is committed to equity in STEM education. Hispanic and Native American individuals remain significantly underrepresented in the STEM workforce, comprising only 8 percent and 0.3 percent respectively, according to the National Science Foundation’s 2023 report. “We use undergraduate research opportunities to help level the playing field for this next generation,” she says.

      She has also redesigned Heritage’s B.S. environmental science program to prepare students for graduate-level STEM work and created a B.A. environmental studies degree for those pursuing roles in policy, nonprofits, or environmental law. She has also facilitated short-term international undergraduate research experiences in Costa Rica and Panama with Indigenous community partners. Built on principles of reciprocity, these programs create global Indigenous exchange opportunities and expand equitable access to international study abroad for students traditionally excluded from such opportunities.

      Her own path to science wasn’t linear. She entered Taft as a middler “needing a lot of support, but Taft helped me catch up,” she says. “And without Taft, I wouldn’t have gotten into Wellesley,” where she found her calling in a geology class.

      “I just loved it—the rocks, the breaking stuff with hammers, the minerals, the learning about how Earth was formed—it just spoke to me,” she says. She went on to earn a master’s in quaternary and climate studies from the University of Maine.

      At Heritage, Black discovered a new love: teaching. “As soon as I got here, I didn’t want to leave,” she says. “I love the students. They’re so creative, and fun, and interesting, and they all come from different backgrounds and cultures. I like to show them that we’re all part of one community, and that community is STEM.”

      She’s also hoping to give students that same “light bulb moment,” she had at Wellesley, helping them leverage their agricultural roots as they pursue careers in STEM.

      “Many of our students haven’t realized how lucrative agriculture can be,” she says. “Their family backgrounds in orchards, fields, and warehouses—plus the fact that many are bilingual—give them a huge advantage. My mother came to this valley as a migrant agricultural worker and retired as a high school teacher. Her path showed me how to help students transform what many once viewed as a disadvantage into a source of pride and professional strength.”