El Paso Science Festival, UTEP Encourage Everyone to Reach for the Stars
Thousands expected at city’s largest science festival
EL PASO, Texas (March 31, 2025) – The El Paso Science Festival returns this April after attracting more than 10,000 attendees in its debut last year.
The festival, which is sponsored by The University of Texas at El Paso and the El Paso Community Foundation among others, will be held April 5-6 and will fill the El Paso Convention Center with more than 100 interactive exhibits as well as science demonstrations and a speaker series — many spearheaded by UTEP scientists and engineers. NASA astronaut José Hernández who was the subject of the 2023 film, A Million Miles Away, will headline the event.
“We want people to leave the festival with the knowledge that a future in science is within their grasp and that UTEP is here to support them every step of the way,” said Robert Kirken, Ph.D., dean of the college of science at UTEP. “The University’s support of the El Paso Science Festival is a reflection of our commitment to our community.”
For Enrique Gomez, the festival’s co-director and founder — and a UTEP alum from the College of Science — the event is a love letter to his home community and the University that propelled him to a career with IBM at NASA.
“As a teenager, I believed my UTEP education could take me to NASA but not all young people have that conviction,” said Gomez. “The idea for the El Paso Science Festival came from wanting to create an environment where kids catch the spark of inspiration to dream big and adults can see that their kids’ dreams are possible.”
As a young boy growing up in Juarez, Gomez dreamt of working in the space program. After earning both a bachelor’s in physics and mathematics and a master’s in mathematics from UTEP, Gomez pursued a Ph.D. in mathematics but left when IBM offered him his dream job at NASA. At NASA, Gomez oversaw a team of engineers who developed the software for the U.S. Space Shuttle’s on-board computer systems, which controlled all the vital functions of the now retired Space Shuttle.
In the early 2010’s Gomez began to envision the El Paso Science Festival, but it wasn’t until being appointed to the Advisory Board for UTEP’s College of Science in 2014 that the festival began to take shape.
“Dean Kirken challenged the advisory board with strategizing how we could get more students in the El Paso region interested in science, and we thought that a Science Festival would be a way to capture the minds of our young people,” said Gomez. “Once Dr. Wilson and Dean Kirken heard our team’s proposal in mid 2023, they became the festival’s first sponsor and threw their full effort behind the endeavor through seed funding, access to volunteers and by representing a significant number of the booths present at the festival.”
He added, “UTEP made The El Paso Science Festival a reality.”
Now, as the El Paso Science Festival returns for a second year, Gomez is excited to see how this year’s event further advances the organization’s long-term goals of increasing the number of kids that decide to go to college and the number of those who decide to pursue science and engineering.
“Our mission is to ignite enthusiasm within the community of El Paso, inspiring a collective appreciation for the excitement and wonder of science,” said Gomez. “Growing up, exposure to science outside of the school environment was limited. But now, El Paso stands proudly alongside cities like San Diego, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C., among others, where science and technology are celebrated on a grand scale every year. I am very proud of playing a small part in making this happen.”
Last Updated on March 31, 2025 at 12:00 AM | Originally published March 31, 2025
By MC Staff UTEP Marketing and Communications
