Raena Cota

Bio

Raena Cota received a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Arizona.  She received an M.S. in Biology from Northern Arizona University. She has worked at New Mexico State University since 2012.  Her first position at NMSU was in the Biology Department as the Outreach Scientist for the NMSU-HHMI Precollege Program.  In August of 2014, she joined the Computer Science Department to become the GK-12 Program Coordinator. Since joining the CS department she has managed multiple K-12 outreach and professional development programs including DISSECT (Discover Science Through Computational Thinking), Young Women in Computing, Verizon Innovative Learning, and the CompThink! PD program for middle and high school teachers.  She works to advocate CS education in the local community, including the Las Cruces Public School district, and statewide as part of the New Mexico Computer Science Teacher’s Association (NM-CSTA). She became the SW Connector for the Computing Alliance for Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI) in February 2019.