For Kelsea Kanoho Hosoda, receiving the American Indian Science and Engineering Society’s (AISES) Blazing Flame Professional Award marks a full-circle moment in her mission to uplift Indigenous students in STEM. The national honor recognizes her decades of work expanding opportunities for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students.

“I’ve been a part of AISES since I was an undergraduate, and they really helped me flourish—from undergrad to graduate school and now in my professional career,” said Hosoda, director of the Native Hawaiian Center of Excellence at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM). “So this award, to me, is more than just recognition from a national organization—it also means a lot for Hawaiʻi.”

Read more about it in the Oct. 21, 2025, University of Hawai‘i News item.