About Me

Since moving to Santa Fe in 1997 (26 years ago) as the trailing spouse of a LANL scientist, Lina has tirelessly been an advocate for STEM Education and for raising the bar for education in New Mexico. While parenting and working, sometimes in the education sector and sometimes in the technology industry, Lina continued to be an active community member, spearheading large community events, leading afterschool STEM programs at her sons’ school, as well as serving on local boards and committees.

In 2016, Lina founded STEM Santa Fe, an award-winning New Mexico 501(c)(3) nonprofit, to advocate for, develop and provide STEM programming, mentoring and resources for all youth, especially under-represented groups in STEM. STEM Santa Fe started with Saturday programming for girls only and quickly expanded in 7 years to serving boys and girls in all Northern NM and with in-school and out-of-school time programming.

During the seven years leading STEM Santa Fe as its CEO, STEM Santa Fe earned multiple awards including Non-Profit of the Year for NM Excellence in STEM by AFRL-NM in 2018 and Piñon Visionary Award by Santa Fe Community Foundation in 2022.

In addition, in 2023, Lina was honored as a Women in Technology by New Mexico Technology Council, received the STEM Equity and Inclusion award by NM Out-of-School Time Network, and in 2022 as the Mentor of the Year for New Mexico Excellence in STEM by AFRL-NM.

Lina is passionate about STEM education as a path for prosperity and is committed to diversity and reaching out to those under-represented communities in STEM disciplines. Her passion comes from being brought up in a modest family in Beirut, Lebanon and being first in her family to go to college, American University of Beirut. Many doors opened for her as she pursued her STEM education, eventually earning a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Boston College while doing her research at Harvard University with Nobel Laureate Dudley R. Herschbach. Years later, while pregnant with her second child, Lina earned her MBA from University of New Mexico. Lina enjoys new challenges, traveling, life-long learning, walking her dog, and Santa Fe’s sunsets.