UIW Record-Setting Summer STEAM Camp Set to Close with More Energy

CPS Energy CEO to Address All-Girls Engineering Summer Camp Celebrating New Attendance Mark

San Antonio – The University of the Incarnate Word GEMS STEAM and Programming Summer Camp will celebrate a record-setting year of attendance at its annual banquet set for Friday, August 2 at 6 pm in the UIW’s McCombs Center Rosenberg Sky Room with keynote speaker CPS Energy President and CEO Paula Gold Williams. miniGEMS (Girls in Engineering, Math, and Science) is a free two-week engineering camp for middle school girls to introduce them to the field of engineering through robotic projects, competitions, guest speakers and field trips.

Now in its fifth year, the program has grown into four two-week camps that focus on everything from computer coding and robotics to the science of food preparation. A record-setting 198 students from three area school districts (SAISD, Judson, and Southside) attended over the course of the summer. This year, for the first time, the program expanded to include high school students with two, two-week megaGEMS camps and one six-week megaGEMS research camp.

“This has been a summer like no other for GEMS,” says program founder and coordinator Dr. Michael Frye, Associate Professor in UIW’s School of Mathematics, Science and Engineering. “We have had so many people come out to support our students, from elected officials to business leaders to the president and the provost of the University of the Incarnate Word. But we would be nowhere without our university student camp counselors who lead the program and our young campers who wake up early, during the summer, with a desire to learn and develop math and science skills that can be life-changing.”

Paula Gold Williams, president and CEO of CPS Energy, will deliver the keynote address. She is the leader of a team of over 3,000 members at the utility who consistently work to find new energy solutions.