City of Santa Ana
Mayor Miguel Pulido will present Paul Riordan, Founder and President of the Achievement Institute of Scientific Studies (AISS), with the Exceptional Citizen Award for his outstanding service to the City of Santa Ana at Tuesday’s City Council Meeting
A retired Santa Ana Unified School District educator and administrator, Paul Riordan taught chemistry and math at Santa Ana High School for 38 years. With a strong dedication to education and our community’s youth, he founded the AISS program in 2001. AISS provides academically gifted high school students who are economically disadvantaged an opportunity and incentive to intensify their studies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
The first AISS pilot program consisted of six sophomore girls from Santa Ana High School. These students participated in 120 academic seminar hours in industry workshops involving digital imaging, laser medicine, computer-aided design, optics manufacturing and engineering research. At the completion of the program, the students were accepted into universities such as UC Los Angeles, UC Irvine, Columbia, Chapman and Yale. Continue reading