Carol Silva can trace her family’s history to southern New Mexico, long before the land became a state. What Hispanic Heritage Month means to her comes through the lens of a family who did not immigrate to the United States, but who lived where the political borders shifted around them.
“This idea of identity is really important – where people come from and how or what they call themselves. Where I come from, we use the word Hispanic, or the old school word Chicano/a,” Silva said. “My family has been primarily cattle ranchers, farmers, and miners from Southern New Mexico. Our heritage is a mix of old Mexico, Spanish, and Indigenous peoples from the southern part of New Mexico. When we talk about people who have immigrated to the United States, my family didn't emigrate. The border just moved over time, so I think that that's an interesting thing to think about – that there are Hispanic people in the United States that didn't come from somewhere else.”
Silva, the co-director of the Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, received her bachelor’s degree from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. During graduate school at the University of Rochester in New York, she experienced how isolating it can feel in a new place without the sense of community she’d previously enjoyed.
“That's where I first learned about the importance of having a network of people that could share the difficulties and accomplishments experienced by first generation and/or underrepresented students in unfamiliar environments. In my graduate program in Rochester, NY it was difficult to find that network and the right kind of mentorship that could meet me where I was and help move forward. That experience taught me the importance of working hard to be a good mentor to students, and to new researchers and junior faculty.”
Silva does this through building a welcoming environment at IPPRA. The institute is one of the “cross-cutting enabling core capabilities” described by the OU Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships in alignment with the Lead On, University strategic plan. IPPRA conducts research and builds partnerships by integrating public policy scholarship with the physical and engineering sciences, with the research aim to increase human well-being, improve social choice infrastructure, and enhance resilience by addressing complex public policy problems and creating opportunities that span natural, technological, and social systems.
“Whether we are talking about the diversity of ideas, diversity of methods, diversity of discipline, diversity of race, ethnicity, or gender, having a welcoming environment to do the work that we do is really important,” Silva said. “We work in complex public policy domains – environment, energy, education, and science policy, and having diversity in as many forms as possible makes the work that IPPRA produces better. It enhances creativity and innovation, and we think it helps us build more robust solutions by including novel perspectives and ideas. It isn’t always easy, but the results are worth it.”
IPPRA is specifically well known for their work on what is described as “wicked problems.” She and her codirector at IPPRA are the science leads for a large statewide National Science Foundation Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) project, “Socially Sustainable Solutions for Water, Carbon and Infrastructure Resilience in Oklahoma (S3OK).”
