East Mountain High Senior Andy Proctor Named NM STEM Student of the Year

SANDIA PARK — High school senior Andy Procter doesn’t just build solutions for complex engineering problems. He builds them for people.

Whether it is designing a NASA-inspired, wildfire-preventing autonomous rover capable of navigating the rugged New Mexico terrain, or staying up all night beside a 3D printer to help his classmates heal after a tragedy, the East Mountain High School student has consistently used technology as a bridge to his community.

That rare blend of technical brilliance and deep civic empathy was recognized on a statewide stage Monday, when the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) Tech Engagement Office and Q Station announced Procter as one of two recipients of the 2026 New Mexico High School STEM Student of the Year award.

Known colloquially as “The STEMYS,” the annual awards honor the state’s top students, educators, and mentors in science, technology, engineering, and math. Procter shares the 9-12 student honor with Anastasia Zagrai of Socorro High School.

The winners will be officially celebrated at an evening ceremony on Friday, June 5, 2026, at Q Station in Albuquerque, where select category winners will receive a $1,500 prize.

“Andy is a rare student whose STEM talent is matched only by his instinct to use it in service of others,” his nomination narrative reads, describing a student who “consistently transforms technical skill into real human impact.”

Innovation in the Face of Fire

For residents of the East Mountain and Cedar Crest communities, the threat of wildfire is a constant, looming anxiety. Procter took that local danger and turned it into a masterclass in robotics.

As team leader, he spearheaded the development of “Project Grover,” an autonomous environmental data-collection rover built specifically to prevent wildfires and subsequent flooding. The machine reads like a piece of aerospace engineering, integrating a NASA-inspired rocker-bogie suspension system, near-infrared (NIR) spectrometry for soil analysis, and electrochemical sensors to track moisture and pH levels.

When off-the-shelf hardware components refused to talk to each other, Procter didn’t look for an easier project. Instead, he engineered a custom, low-latency communication protocol using five transistors to generate ASCII codes, bridging the incompatible systems from scratch.

Project Grover went on to capture the People’s Choice Award at the New Mexico Governor’s STEM Challenge—one of only eight top honors statewide voted on by peers and industry experts—as well as a national ExploraVision Honorable Mention. The project generated so much gravity that Procter and his team were invited to the Roundhouse in Santa Fe, where the high schooler stood on the New Mexico Senate floor to demonstrate the rover to state lawmakers.

STEM as a Tool for Healing

Yet, those who know Procter say his most profound engineering achievement didn’t happen in a competition hall or legislative chamber. It happened in the quiet, devastating hours following the tragic loss of a fellow East Mountain High School student.

Seeking a way to help a grieving student body find connection, Procter turned to computer-aided design (CAD) software. He designed a memorial ring featuring a blue butterfly, fired up his 3D printer, and stayed awake through the night to produce them. He distributed the code to classmates with their own printers to scale up production.

By the next morning, hundreds of rings were circulating. They quickly appeared on the hands of students, teachers, and parents at school and local sporting events—becoming a visible, unifying symbol of shared grief and solidarity across the East Mountain area.

Cultivating the Next Generation

Procter’s leadership is defined by a distinct lack of personal vanity. After completing the school’s advanced robotics curriculum, he chose to retake the Robotics 2 elective this year for no extra advancement, solely to act as a peer mentor. He now develops original coding lessons and guides Robotics 1 students through hardware troubleshooting.

His footprint extends deep into local elementary schools as well. Now in his second year leading a youth STEM outreach program, Procter partnered with New Mexico Tech to mentor fourth graders building “MESA Sheriff-class” battle bots for the upcoming Miner Mayhem competition. At the same time, he is guiding elementary students through the “CookieBot Project”—a whimsical, hands-on engineering task to build a robot from scratch that can mix, bake, and serve cookies.

Beyond the laboratory, Procter is a multi-year national qualifier and the reigning New Mexico state champion in U.S. Extemporaneous Speaking, and recently placed third at a national Model UN conference in New York City. He was nominated for his honor by East Mountain teacher Marie Booth.

The 2026 STEMYS are presented by the City of Albuquerque Economic Development Department. Other notable honorees this year include K-8 Student Winner Ashvita Prasankumar of Desert Willow Family School, and Dr. Romalyn Ubaldo of Santa Rosa High School, who secured the 9-12 Educator of the Year award.

But for the East Mountain community, June 5 will be a celebration of a local student who proved that the true measure of technology isn’t just the data it collects, but the community it holds together.

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IF YOU GO

What: 2026 New Mexico Excellence in STEM Awards (The STEMYS)

When: Friday, June 5, 2026, at 6:00 p.m.

Where: Q Station, Albuquerque, N.M.