Jacimaria Batista, professor of civil and environmental engineering and the  Southwest Gas Professor of Renewable Energy, will share her professional origin journey during the fall installment of the Graduate College’s My Professional Origin Story speaker series. The event will be held at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in the Barrick Museum of Art Auditorium. It is open to the UNLV community and will also be live streamed on YouTube.  

In advance of her lecture, Batista shares a glimpse of her story below. 

What are a few of the defining moments of your educational journey?

I got my first job as a grocery packing helper in a supermarket when I was 11 years old. I also sold  vegetables that I grew in my grandmother’s yard when I was 12 years old. The money that I earned was placed in a separate savings account that my mother opened for me. This account was meant to pay for my continued studies.

That first savings account was vital. Only families that could afford it, were able to send their children to school beyond elementary and middle school. As my small hometown of Novo Cruzeiro in Brazil did not have a high school, I would have to move to a larger town 80 miles away to a STEM-prep Franciscan high school to continue my education. 

I loved everything about school, from the history of ancient civilizations to 7th grade math (which most students disliked). I competed and won every science fair prize; learning how plants and animals reproduce was particularly fascinating to me. Continuing my education was a difficult feat for my family to achieve because we lost our father when I was 7 years old, and I was one of eight siblings. My mother started a small hotel and restaurant one year before my father passed and that was our income for all of our needs. 

At the Franciscan high school, the passage rate in the college exam for engineering and sciences was 100%. I was called to the priest’s office after my first quarter, and I was told that despite my great grades in STEM subjects, it was not acceptable to have a 6 out of 10 in English. I mentioned my small-town school did not have an English teacher and that that was my first time studying the language and that I already knew all the regular and irregular verbs by heart!

Unfortunately, he told me that those skills were not sufficient to pass the college exam for engineering. I was informed that I would have to take private lessons, and he arranged a scholarship with the Centro de Cultura Anglo Americana (CCAA) language institute. I was unable to pay for my lessons, so in exchange for payment, I would help the CCAA owner clean the classrooms on Saturdays. That was a wonderful opportunity because while we cleaned the rooms, the owner taught me vocabulary, grammar, etc., and she became a second mother and mentor to me. This very event is one of the reasons I earned a scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in the United States seven years later. 

I passed the college exam and was accepted into a tuition-free university, 600 miles from my home.  [But] I needed funds for living expenses. I tutored many subjects to gather funding for my day-to-day expenses, but it was not enough. During my second year, I started baking cakes and sold them to the cafeteria in the mining/geology building where I took classes. Every evening in the oven in my student house, I baked banana, orange, and carrot cakes with melted chocolate topping. My mother is an excellent baker, and I had always helped in the family restaurant.

So, the “fame” of my cakes spread quickly, and students from other majors soon stopped by to buy the cakes. The cafeteria owner wanted more cakes for other locations, but I could not handle it alone. Another student in my home needed money when her mom died from an aneurysm, so I invited her to join me baking during the early hours. I taught her how to bake, and I learned that working together and teaching was very rewarding.

Describe a time when a mentor made an impact on your life.

When I graduated with my Ph.D. I had three job offers, one at UNLV and two with more established universities. I had never heard of UNLV. After the onsite interview, I was unimpressed by the laboratory space (which was almost nothing), the old library and its small collection, and the number of trailers used for teaching.

After evaluating all three offers, I talked to my favorite mentor. They told me that while the other universities had established programs and labs and that it would be easy to start, UNLV was new and growing and very much needed people with expertise in water to grow and even to establish the program. “With increased  population growth, water may become vital to Las Vegas in the future,” they added. Furthermore, my mentor told me: If you cannot get a working lab in two years, you should move, but take a chance at a place where you can make a difference.

I was inspired by their advice and the prospect to build something and make an impact. I took the job and have been an engineering faculty member at UNLV for 26 years.  

If you could give advice to a younger version of yourself, what would you say?

“Do not give up the guitar!”

I love music and was very interested in playing the guitar. Twice, I started teaching myself, but my fingers were often cut or bruised by the strings and made it harder to do school homework. I gave it up because studying and working were the priority at the time.

Can you share a few words about the photo that you selected to highlight your story?

My graduating class in fall 1987, at the entrance of the Ouro Preto School of Mines, Brazil. I was the only woman graduating with a bachelor's in mining engineering. Being the only woman in class was not a big deal for me. I grew up in a hotel and was used to being around male guests. After a few semesters, I was very much respected by my fellow students, perhaps because of my high grades, but partly because I considered myself equal in all aspects.