JAVIER ORTIZ

Hometown: Austin, Texas
School: Texas State University
Degree: B.S. in Industrial Engineering
Placement One: Resources for the Future
Placement Two: U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology

Javier Ortiz was born in Detroit, Michigan, and has lived in multiple cities, including Mexico City, Boston, and Austin, Texas. These early experiences in moving across the continent helped shape his understanding of history, geography, and cultural diversity. His paternal and maternal grandparents migrated to Michigan to work in the auto industry to pursue work opportunities that would offer more security and stability for them and their young children. This family spirit of hope and history of inequitable impact related to access to home loans, job advancement, and unhealthy work environments in the auto industry influenced his interest in workplace development, labor rights, and environmental justice.

Javier graduated with a bachelor’s from Texas State University in Industrial Engineering with a minor in Geography. He was an Undergraduate Research Assistant with the College of Science and Engineering on the NSF Rising Stars Project and USDA Evergreen Research Project. He was actively involved in student organizations such as the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers and was a Houston – Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Scholar (H-LSAMP). He was also involved in conducting field research on transportation systems in Delft, Netherlands, and completed an engineering co-op with Infineon Technologies in Munich, Germany. Javier has worked with STEM education outreach efforts with the Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos and the NASA STEM Saturdays program at Seguin ISD.

As a CHCI Public Policy Fellow, Javier is interested in delving into policy related to technology and environmental issues, mainly working to understand the interrelations between economic, racial, and environmental justice to develop integrated solutions that address systems of inequality.