SUCCESS STORY: SLOAN INDIGENOUS GRADUATE SCHOLARSHIP       
           PROGRAM ADMINISTERED BY NACME FUNDS DREAMS OF MONICA YELLOWHAIR TO PURSUE PH.D. DEGREE IN PHARMACOLOGY AND TOXICOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
           
 Yellowhair aims to use degree in pharmacology and toxicologydegree to help research causes and prevention of Navajo cancers allegedly caused by depleted uranium

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.—The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, Inc. (NACME), has produced many success stories as a national leader in educational support for underrepresented minority students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. One such story is that of Sloan Scholar Monica Yellowhair, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Arizona. Yellowhair wants to use her degree to research the causes and prevention of cancers among the Navajo people that were allegedly caused by depleted uranium on and around the reservation.

“I’ve always been interested in science,” Yellowhair said, “even when I was little.” But Yellowhair, who is completing her Ph.D. with financial support from the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership Program (administered by NACME since 2003), also has personal reasons for pursuing the solutions she seeks in her dissertation research. Yellowhair grew up on the Navajo reservation in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest, where the states of Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico come together. “On the Navajo reservation, there are numerous abandoned uranium mines,” Yellowhair said. “In the past I had heard stories from some of the older people in our community about the uranium mining and about a lot of the hardships that their families had to deal with because of the mining.”

During the Cold War, private mining companies came to extract the metal from mines in the uranium-rich region. Processing of uranium for use in nuclear weapons and power generation involved removing the most radioactive isotopes from the element, leaving behind less-potent, but still radioactive material, called depleted uranium. Once the uranium was extracted, Yellowhair said, “A lot of the prospectors shut down the mines and the owners left town without properly sealing the mines, with no remediation. Many of the Navajo men had been willing to work in the mines, but people were exposed to radiation and not told about the hazards. As a result, many miners got sick, and several have died of lung cancer.”

Yellowhair, whose research falls in the field of toxicology, is studying depleted uranium to determine how exposure to it might cause the DNA damage that can increase susceptibility to cancer. For Yellowhair, the project is important because it might lead to answers that can help the Navajo people.

“I enjoy the project because it hits home for me,” she said, adding that she is grateful to NACME and the Sloan Foundation for helping make her work possible. “The Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership Program has been really wonderful. It’s played a huge role as far as my Ph.D. work is concerned.”

“My work gives me the feeling that I can actually contribute and help my family and people back home on the reservation,” she said. “That’s why I’m pretty passionate about it.”

Since 1974, NACME has supported more than 22,000 underrepresented minority students and awarded more than $114 million in scholarships through a national network of leading corporate and university partners.

Throughout its existence, NACME has stayed true to its mission: to provide leadership and support for the national effort to increase the representation of successful African American, American Indian and Latino women and men in science, technology, engineering and math-based careers. NACME alumni hold leadership positions in industry, medicine, law, education and government. In 2009, NACME awarded $3.8 million in scholarships, funded by corporate and university partners, to students. NACME currently has more than 1,300 scholars at 50 Partner institutions across the nation.