Like Family Posted on January 20, 2009 The National Hispanic Science Network fosters a scholarly community, says Antonio Cepeda-Benito (bio).

This organization, the National Hispanic Science Network, has been also I think helpful to me because one thing that happens in academia is that you have to start getting yourself known, and it's important that people know who you are and what you do. And I'm not a person who likes big organizations. I kind of get lost if I go to a very large meeting where there are hundreds and hundreds of people. I feel pretty lonely because there's too many things to choose from, too many things to attend. So it's a little bit dizzy for me.

But NHSN was kind of, it felt like family a little bit because we were not that many at the first meeting, and it felt like home. Maybe because many of us did speak Spanish, or the same sense of humor, felt lots of similar kind of issues that we share, and obviously an interest in Hispanic populations in this country as well as our students who are by and large Hispanic as well. So we had lots of things in common.

So I did get involved with the organization. I volunteered to be part of the conference planning committees, and then because of my interest in international research, I proposed to José Szapocznik to bring some members of the NHSN to some of the Spanish events and as well bring people from Spain, too, to this conference. And at the beginning we were just kind of individual type of opportunities, and then after two or three years, we decided to create the international subcommittee of the NHSN and give a special focus to the international component.