Melissa Jara

Melissa Jara is an international student who came to the United States after graduating from High School in Cuenca, Ecuador. She is a sophomore at Bergen Community College majoring in Engineering Science. She had earned two scholarships and fulfilled two internships in two years while living in the United States. As the Vice President of Projects of the STEM Student Union, she monitors the progress of all projects and helps support her peers’ researches by organizing and facilitating the communication between research teams while also conducting her own research projects. Currently, her areas of research are Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. She is also an established member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and part of the PEPSICO Women’s Mentorship program. Her goal is to continue her education and academic involvement on campus while furthering her research initiatives. Her current projects involve developing a “Robotic Arm” with the goal to assist individuals with physical disabilities, and to create a “fully commingled” recycle efficient bin that can detect items in a single stream capacity, reducing the cost of collection and increasing flexibility and willingness to participate in the recycling process. This ecologically friendly initiative aims to further support the protection and future preservation of the environment.