Volume 1, Issue 1July 2007
El Faro Staff
Liliane Cambraia Windsor, Ph.D., M.S.W., Editor
Sheila Kaupert,
Newsletter Coordinator
National Office
Jane Brooks, M.Sc., C.M.P.
Website Coordinator
This Month's Contributors
Melissa Alvarado, M.A.
Jason Burrow-Sánchez, Ph.D.
José Cañive, M.D.
Antonio Cepeda-Benito, Ph.D.
Evelio Escamilla
J. Bryan Page, Ph.D.
Juan Peña, Ph.D.
Ulises M. Ricoy, M.A.
Avelardo Valdez, Ph.D.
Liliane C. Windsor, M.S.W.
María Luisa Zúñiga, Ph.D.
National Steering Committee
José Szapocznik, Ph.D., NHSN Chair
Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, M.D., Ph.D.
Hortensia Amaro, Ph.D.
Ana Mari Cauce, Ph.D.
Joe Martínez, Ph.D.
Patricia Molina, M.D., Ph.D.
Humberto Nicolini-Sanchez, M.D., Ph.D.
Bryan Page, Ph.D.
Rafaela Robles, Ed.D.
Avelardo Valdez, Ph.D.
Bill Vega, Ph.D.
Volume 1, Issue 1
Note from the Editor
Nelson Tiburcio
Welcome to the first edition of El Faro: La Voz de la Red.
This Newsletter is intended to serve as our Lighthouse, nuestro Faro, and to give voice to the National Hispanic Science Network on Drug Abuse (NHSN). Founded in 2001, the NHSN has demonstrated a dramatic growth spurt during the last six years. The original members have seen their numbers increase by 550 percent. El Faro has been created to give voice to our growing membership, to showcase our work and to celebrate our achievements. The innovations, dissemination and mentoring taking place at the annual conference and Summer Research Training Institute will be featured every issue. We will showcase the contributions of members throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico, Latin America and Spain, and will be reminded of what a vastly encompassing national and international network we have become. Our hope is that El Faro will inform, guide, support, and connect us.
El Faro is a work in progress that will evolve and improve through the input and suggestions of our members, but that will always seek opportunities to enlighten, applaud, question and discuss. We have tied El Faro closely to the new Network website and will cross-link the two as much as possible.
The regular features of El Faro include:
- Career Diva, in which senior members will offer career advice in response to questions posed by other members, questions that address problems and issues most of us may have experienced. We encourage our graduate student and early career members to submit their professional development questions to the Career Diva. This is an opportunity to receive well-considered advice from distinguished senior scientists; let’s use it! We also invite our senior members to volunteer to be one of our quarterly Divas. We need you! We are thrilled that our resident crooner and guitarist (and he really has a beautiful voice!) Dr. Bryan Page has agreed to be our very first Diva. ¡Gracias Bryan!
- Nuestra Voz: First Person will provide members an opportunity to share their insights and experiences with us in their own words. Each column will feature a first person account of a personal or professional learning experience that a member has encountered along her or his career journey. In this issue, graduate student Ulises Ricoy writes about gaining a new understanding of science as a calling, and how it puts everything into a new perspective. We hope Nuestra Voz will provide guidance, support and encouragement, and remind us that we are not alone. So please consider sharing your stories with us; we want to hear from you!
- In the New Member Interviews, recently elected members will introduce themselves and tell us about their work. This feature will help us keep up with our growing network and hopefully will inspire us to communicate with new members whose work is relevant to our own. Check out the interviews with new members Melissa Alvarado, Jose Cañive, Juan Peña, and María Luisa Zúñiga,
- El Faro will also include regular columns with updates on our annual conference, Summer Research Training Institute, international collaborations, and other NHSN activities. We will also bring you information on upcoming conferences and training opportunities, professional positions and post-docs, and funding opportunities. We will partner with our sister publication, Adelante! The Newsletter of NHSN Fellows, to cross-link information. We need you to send us announcements that may be of interest to our Network, so please, let us know what’s happening, and we will spread the word.
Mil gracias to our contributors, our supporters, y Nuestra Gente, but most of all to you, the members of the Network. Please send us your letters and contributions, and let your voices be heard! Recuerden, juntos seguiremos en la Lucha…our struggle continues.
Nelson