2nd Annual STEM Symposium to feature Dr. Dequina Nicholas
Published Wednesday, April 08, 2026
The Mathematics Program at Southwest Minnesota State University will host the 2nd Annual STEM Symposium on Wednesday, April 22, 2026 from 6:00-7:00pm in the Upper Conference Center. The STEM Symposium Series was launched to celebrate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.
The symposium will feature keynote speaker, Dr. Dequina Angelina Nicholas, Assistant Professor at the University of California, Irvine in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. The topic of her keynote is “Hijacking the Metabolism: Inflammation Connection for New Type 2 Diabetes Treatments.”
The Nicholas lab studies the intersection of the nutrient environment, the immune system, and metabolic disease using a combination of molecular and cellular biology, transgenic mouse models, cytokine profiling, and flow cytometry. Dr. Nicholas’s work focuses on how the immune system and cellular metabolism impact endocrine diseases, particularly type 2 diabetes and polycystic ovary syndrome. Dr. Nicholas received her PhD in biochemistry from Loma Linda University and pursued postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Barbara Nikolajczyk at Boston University, studying the metabolism of immune cells from patients with type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Nicholas also trained in the laboratories of Drs. Mark Lawson and Pamela Mellon. During that time, Dr. Nicholas established the importance of glucose metabolism in reproduction and discovered a population of immune cells in the pituitary that regulate the reproductive axis. Dr. Nicholas has received the NIH Director's New Innovator Award from NIAID to fund her “immunoendocrine” lab where her mission is to train the next generation of diverse scientists. She is passionate about changing the culture of science to valuing diversity and inclusivity.
She is the Associate Director for the UCI KL-2 program, and in this role is supporting the development of a university-wide junior faculty mentoring program that increases retention and success of minoritized scholars. She has a passion for first-generation scientists and founded 1stGenInSTEM to curate a consolidated resource that demystifies the “Hidden Curriculum” for students who are the first in their families to pursue STEM higher education. Dr. Nicholas advocates for bringing your authentic and whole self to science through sharing the ups and downs of being a new PI, a mom, and minority scholar on TikTok (@NicholasLab) and Twitter (@QuinaScience).
The SMSU STEM Symposium series was created to feature a nationally recognized speaker from one of the STEM disciplines to present their research, make the topics accessible, spark interest in the STEM fields, and to break down barriers to careers.
The symposium is free and open to the public. Funding for the STEM Symposium is provided in part by the SMSU Foundation.
In addition to the evening keynote, Dr. Nicholas will meet with area high school and SMSU students during sessions earlier in the day. Learn more about Dr. Nicholas on her faculty webpage: https://nicholaslab.bio.uci.edu/people/dequina-nicholas/
Dr. Heather Moreland from the SMSU Mathematics Program is the coordinator of the symposium and can be reached at heather.moreland@smsu.edu.
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