Cilla Jose is a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), majoring in molecular biology with minors in chemistry and engineering. She was selected as the 2016-2017 academic year recipient of the Nevada NSF EPSCoR Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) during her first year of undergraduate studies, where she conducted research in the Energy and Environmental Materials Laboratory under the supervision of Dr. Jaeyun Moon. Her project entailed the synthesis of nanomaterials for solar absorber coatings and surveying their potential for biological, chemical, and environmental impacts. Since Fall 2017, she received the UNLV CSUN Research Stipend Award with support to participate in Dr. Dale Devitt’s Arid Lands Soil-Plant-Water Stress Interactions Laboratory.

Cilla enjoys promoting STEM education and prospective research opportunities to students of varying backgrounds and grade levels. She is a STEM Ambassador for the NSF-sponsored Solar NEXUS in Nevada project, a STEM tutor for the UNLV Upward Bound Math and Science Center, and a Ronald McDonald House Charities Scholarship Ambassador. She is the president of Chemical Interactions (the UNLV organization for student members of the American Chemical Society, ACS). She is the founding member of both Oursphere, an academic research journal for the UNLV Honors College, and Étendue: The UNLV Student Optics Chapter (representing students of SPIE: The International Society of Optics & Photonics and OSA: The Optical Society).