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idalisv.bsky.social
@idalisv.bsky.social
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Dr. Idalis Villanueva Alarcón
📍 Chair, Department of Engineering Education | Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering | University of Florida🔬 Researcher | Academic Leader | Innovator
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This weekend was the Annual New Fellows Orientation for the 2025 McKnight Doctoral Fellows. I was invited to serve as a panelist to discuss, “The PhD Roadmap: Graduate School Resources and Best Practices for Success.” I got to see my new students, who are both new McKnight Fellows! #AcademicSky
Me, in the middle, with a Gator blue shirt and herringbone black and white pants, and bedazzled flip flop (and thankful the dais hid my feet during the earlier session)! I’m standing between my two new students. Teresa Myrthil is on the left of the image. She’s a graduate of CMU’s chemical engineering program. Raina Johnson is on the right of the image, and she’s a graduate of the University of Miami’s environmental engineering program, and currently works at a consulting firm. We’re all smiles! Only Raina thought to take off her name tag. Dr. Adrienne Stephenson of FSU, our moderator, makes a solid (relevant) point after my comment. She is the main character of this image, wearing a read dress, hair in a bun, with perfectly snatched edges. She’s pointing with both hands for emphasis. I’m holding a microphone sitting behind the aforementioned dais (amen) smiling in agreement. The alignment! The persuasion with the pointed fingers… so great. (Clocks tea, I’m thinking, probably). The other two panelists are to my left and right, Dr. Sonja Montas-Hunter and Dr. Antoinette Smith, are pensive. This image shows the dais, and panelists with a new main character. Dr. Taylor (whose last name I can’t remember because I’m still waking up from a post-church nap) is holding a framed certificate she will soon hand to me. Her back is to the audience/camera. My face is giving, “Girl, are you going to pronounce my whole name correctly?” She was surprisingly successful! And I was impressed! But that’s not shown here. Dr. Sonja Montas-Hunter is amused by her attempted pronunciation, likely because she also had a similar gut-feeling about her names. Our other panelist is simply, not impressed and focused on placing her water bottle back down without causing chaos.
August 17, 2025 at 6:57 PM