Looking for something quick and easy to enhance a resume? The University of New Mexico’s STEM-H Center seeks volunteer student and faculty judges for two upcoming competitions for the Central New Mexico Science and Engineering Research Challenge, and the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS).

The Central N.M. Science and Engineering Research Challenge is the regional science fair. Students advance to the regional competition from their school fairs and are competing to qualify for the state and international fairs as well as numerous top-of-category and special awards. Upper-level undergraduate, graduate, professional Ph.D. students, practicing research faculty and post-docs are welcomed to apply to judge this competition.

JSHS is a tri-service (U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force) sponsored STEM competition, which promotes original

Central New Mexico Science and Engineering Research Challenge

and experimentation at the high school level. Students at the regional competition are competing for scholarship awards as well as advancement to the national competition. Judges are required to have a bachelor's degree or higher to participate in JSHS judging.

The Central N.M. Science and Engineering Research Challenge is on Friday, March 23 at Expo New Mexico.

  • Regional category judges, for grades six through 12, are required to interview middle or high school students about their science or engineering projects, score them and caucus with fellow judges to determine 1-3 places in a category. Judges can choose their division (middle or high school) and category (biology, chemistry, math, engineering, etc.).
    To be a regional category judge, sign up here. Shift time is 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Expo judges, for fourth and fifth grades, are required to follow the same procedure as regional category judges. There is a strong emphasis on providing positive interactions and feedback to the students.
    To be a fourth or fifth grade Expo judge sign up here. Shift time is 12 to 4 p.m.
  • Special awards judges are required to interview middle or high school students about their science or engineering project to select winners for various special awards based on individual award criteria. To be a special awards judge sign up here. Shift time is 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The second set of competitions is March 2-3 at the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium.

  • On March 2, from 3 to 7 p.m. and/or March 3 from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., oral presentation judges will evaluate PowerPoint presentations and research papers from high school students in the STEM fields and caucus with other judges to determine placement and awards.
  • On March 3, from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., poster session judges are required to interview students about their science or engineering project and evaluate their poster presentations to select top winners.

To be a judge for JSHS sign up here.                                      

For more information on judging criteria and the scoring process click here.