Mia-Marie Fields, Unsung Hero Awardee, helps minority students feel welcome at SU

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While sitting on Syracuse University’s Quad, Mia-Marie Fields, a senior studying biomedical engineering, screamed as she was notified over the phone that she would have a job in biomedical engineering after graduation. She said the opportunity was everything she could have dreamed of.

“Everything just came into fruition in that one single moment,” Fields said. “I wanted to literally explode.”

On Jan. 21, Fields was honored as a 2024 Unsung Hero, an award given annually to people whose impacts on others have not been widely recognized. During her time on campus, Fields contributed to the planning and design of 119 Euclid, now The Barner-McDuffie House, and is currently serving as the president of SU’s Society of Women Engineers chapter. Wrapping up her community service work at SU, she plans to continue helping those around her after she graduates.

Fields has devoted much of her time over the past four years to creating a space for Black women engineers at SU. Fields is originally from Miami, which she describes as a “melting pot” for diversity. She said the transition to studying at the at a primarily white institution like SU was a “culture shock”

As a result, Fields looked for a diverse community on campus, eventually finding her way to people she said made her feel welcome at 119 Euclid and the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

“I wanted to make sure that … I didn’t leave this campus without leaving some sort of environment and space for new (minority) students coming in, to feel welcome,” Fields said.

Fields said one of her biggest accomplishments at the university was creating the 119 Euclid space with a team of other students. Fields said her involvement in this project pushed her to implement more change on campus.

“(I was) just this little freshman coming into Syracuse during the (COVID-19) pandemic, and sometimes as one singular student, you might not think that you have an ability to make an impact,” Fields said. “You definitely do. It’s just a matter of putting yourself in those spaces.”

The Unsung Hero Award made Fields feel seen and recognized for her work, which she hopes inspires others who “look like her” to implement change and do community work in ways that resonate with them. Professors and friends have told her that her work goes unnoticed, but she said recognition was never the goal.

“I don’t do the things that I do to be recognized,” Fields said. “I just get the work done and honestly, that’s what I really care about.”

Fields is involved with SU’s National Black Society of Engineers chapter, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration planning committee and the New Student and Family Programs Department as an orientation leader.

She has also received several scholarships, including the Our Time Has Come Scholarship, SU’s Remembrance Scholarship and Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. Off-campus, she is involved in We Rise Above the Streets Recovery Outreach Inc., where she said she volunteers almost every weekend.

Fields has also helped develop a portable breast cancer detection device for resource-limited countries. In her future as an engineer, she said she plans to work on artificial heart valve technology.

Alonzo Turner, a graduate student studying philosophy at SU, met Fields at 119 Euclid when the space was being designed. The house’s entertainment room features a poster of the film “Hidden Figures,” which Turner said embodies Fields well as the film’s female protagonists navigate racism, sexism and classism at NASA.

As president of SU’s SWE, Fields has advocated for women in the engineering field who may feel “unrecognized” in their work. In the future, she hopes to create a nonprofit advocating for young Black girls who want to go into a STEM field.

“Especially as women where we feel like we aren’t seen in the spaces and usually get overshadowed by the majority of men that are probably there dominating that space … (SWE) was literally created in revolt, kind of in protest of that common trend,” Fields said.

Turner said Fields is also skilled in “bridging the gap” between women of color and access to the medical field.

“She’s using her medical field as a form of women’s empowerment and she continues to develop different resources for marginalized groups,” Turner said.

Minetsa Cotto Ortiz, a junior studying political science and government and international relations at SU, met Fields through the Alpha Kappa Alpha. Ortiz said Fields’ care and empathy are her strongest characteristics and that they translate into the work she does in the Syracuse community.

“The significance of her impact on campus goes without telling, she has such a big ability to create community and to create genuine places for change. Her ability to help create a safe space is something that does not surprise me … because she has such a care of making people feel welcome,” Ortiz said.

After interning at Edwards Lifesciences — a company that designs products for patients fighting cardiovascular disease and critical illness — in Irvine, California for two summers, Fields accepted her post-graduation job from the medical company after her phone call on the Quad.

She said her first goal is to give back to her family, along with creating a nonprofit. Her mother — from Puerto Rico – and her father — from Queens, New York — worked to put Fields in her current position, she said.

“I wish, when I was little, that I had people that would constantly remind me that I could (be in) the spaces that I’m in now. And oftentimes we don’t have that,” Fields said. “That’s what the goal of (my work) would be.”