MIT Sends 10 Students to Tulsa Program, Aiding Native Nations and 25 Tribal STEM Campers
Updated
Updated · MIT News · Sep 25
MIT Sends 10 Students to Tulsa Program, Aiding Native Nations and 25 Tribal STEM Campers
2 articles · Updated · MIT News · Sep 25
Summary
Ten MIT undergraduates spent the summer in Tulsa through the 2026 Code.Tulsa program, pairing technical internships with training on the historical and cultural dimensions of technology.
At the Muscogee Creek Nation Department of Health, interns Daphne Wang and Lucy Sun helped build the nation’s first PRAMS maternal-health survey, handling literature reviews, data analysis and draft questions while navigating tribal data sovereignty.
The second-year program placed students with the Muscogee and Cherokee nations and nonprofits including Black Tech Street and Urban Coders Guild, with MIT’s PKG Center framing the work through a humanist, community-based lens.
Jack Carson, a Cherokee Nation citizen and MIT sophomore, also launched a weeklong STEM camp that selected 25 students from 10 tribes out of 160 applications spanning 25 Native nations.
Students and tribal leaders said the effort widened access to STEM and reinforced a public-interest approach to engineering, with several campers saying the experience pushed them to aim for MIT and community-focused tech careers.