Coe College president appointed to the Governor's STEM Advisory Council
Coe College President David Hayes ’93 has been appointed to the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council. The group has been assembled to invigorate the Pre-K-12 talent pipeline toward STEM careers.
Across the state, Coe’s STEM programs carry a reputation for innovation both in research and education. Hayes will bring the STEM education knowledge and connections built at Coe with him into his advisory role.
“I’m fortunate to have worked with brilliant educators and researchers, and have proudly worked on expansion of our academic offerings in the STEM realm,” Hayes said.
In the past five years, Coe has dedicated the David and Janice McInally Center for Health & Society, a one-of-kind academic center to complement Coe’s MedQuarter location; and launched new programs in data science, engineering physics and aviation management & flight operations. On a department and individual level, Coe also has an impressive list of recent achievements:
• A physics department that is so well known for its glass and materials research that Fran Allison and Francis Halpin Professor of Physics Dr. Mario Affatigato ’89 was just named president of the American Ceramic Society.
• Coe’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates site was renewed last year with an award of $464,737 funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
• Coe was the recipient of a $225,000 grant from NASA to acquire high-performance computing clusters last year.
• A just-announced partnership with Google AI for Education Accelerator to provide the most advanced artificial intelligence tools, resources and training.
• Tyler Salrin ’25 was named both a Goldwater Scholar and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. There are seven total Kohawks who have been named NSF Graduate Research Fellows in the past decade.
• Plus, over the last 30 years, 100% of physics and chemistry majors accepted to grad school have earned a full scholarship/stipend to attend.
The experience gained with these projects will be invaluable on the advisory council, which works to create opportunities that inspire Iowa’s young people to become innovative, enterprising contributors to our future workforce and the quality of life in our communities, according to its mission statement.