Bañuelos Receives Alumni Service Award
Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences graduate Erika Bañuelos (DC 1996) is one of 10 Carnegie Mellon University Alumni Awards honorees for 2025. An Alumni Service Award recipient, Bañuelos is recognized for her dedicated and impactful service to the university and its students and alumni.
“This year is a double celebration — 125 years since CMU’s founding and 75 years of the Alumni Awards — so it’s the perfect time to honor where we’ve been and where we’re headed,” said Joanna D. Lovering, president of the CMU Alumni Association Board. “What a milestone year to cheer on this incredible group of Alumni Award honorees! Their drive, creativity and generosity light the way for every Tartan.”
Ensuring that all members of the Carnegie Mellon University community feel seen, supported and celebrated is a priority to Bañuelos. Through her career, her volunteer work and her tireless dedication to the Denver Alumni Network, she has connected and celebrated Tartans of all generations and all backgrounds.
For nearly 20 years, Erika has led and supported the CMU Denver Alumni Network. During her time as network president, she hosted faculty visits, organized more than 10 annual local events and helped the chapter win the Rising Star Award. She is well known by alumni in the Rocky Mountain region for her unwavering support of CMU and her ability to help alumni re-engage with the university and reconnect to that sense of accomplishment and pride they felt on their graduation day.
Along with helping alumni strengthen their connection to CMU, Erika helps students build their own deep, meaningful connection to the university. As an undergraduate, she was a member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, a four-year member of the women’s soccer team and a pusher on the SPIRIT Buggy team. She continues to engage with all three organizations, providing financial support and acting as a mentor to student-athletes, members of Spirit Racing Systems and emerging Latino engineers. A certified Bikram yoga instructor since 2002, Erika has also led free in-person and virtual Yoga lessons for CMU students.
Additionally, Erika has served on the Tartan Athletic Club Board and the CMU Alumni Association Board. She co-chaired and volunteered for reunion committees for multiple graduating classes, served on the nominating committee and acted as an ad hoc chair and consistent participant in the network leader sessions. She currently serves on the board of the CMU Black Alumni Association and is a regular collaborator on cross-network events.
Erika earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from Dietrich College and a minor in engineering studies from the College of Engineering.
She began her career managing the construction of CMU’s Cohon University Center, which she says symbolizes her full-circle connection to her alma mater. Since then, Erika has amassed more than three decades of leadership experience in the construction industry, managing large-scale capital projects across the U.S. She currently serves as a senior preconstruction manager at Matrix Technologies.
