Working for the People and Working for Laughs
When his time on the popular series “Breaking Bad” came to an end in 2013, Steven Michael Quezada (Attended 81–83) figured he’d go back to what gave him a start in the first place – standup comedy. “During the day, I was working for Youth Development, Inc., at night, I was doing my comedy act for chicken wings and a couple of beers, maybe an extra $20 or $50,” he said. “I was able to raise my three daughters by telling jokes.” He was getting steady work, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, curtailing any further work in that vein. It’s hard to get audiences to laugh when audiences aren’t allowed to gather. Steven has found a different purpose – public service. He ran and won election to the Albuquerque School Board in 2013, later trading that position for an elected spot on the Bernalillo County Board of Commissioners in 2016.
by Todd Fuqua Steven initially got into public service when he started a gang intervention program in Albuquerque, using theater as a way to involve youth. Eventually, he moved the program into film production and began winning awards for his work. Steven continues his acting work, which includes a number of appearances in independent films (the most recent being 2019’s “Wish Man”) and a pair of appearances in his role as Steven Gomez in “Better Call Saul,” the prequel to “Breaking Bad.” He’s also shopping around a comedy special he created. While education and behavioral health care inspired him to serve in local government, it’s the business of a functioning government that keeps him busy, particularly when representing his constituency in the South Valley. “There are so many things we have to be concerned with, like infrastructure, roads, water. I’m the voice to keep government accountable,” he said. “Once you’re elected, you can’t be political. You have to do your job.”
“I’ve been looking at education and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. I remember my experience at ENMU, and I learned a lot,” Steven shared. “Dr. Patrick Rucker was the theater Steven Michael Quezada, right, reprises his role as Steven Gomez (along with fellow professor then, a great guy that gave me a few good roles for actor Dean Norris as Hank Schrader) in the AMC television show “Better Call Saul.” my skill set. He prepared me for my acting journey.” While at ENMU, Steven gained insight to how education doesn’t work for some, which is what prompted him to get into public service. “There’s a huge gap in education in Albuquerque, New Mexico,” Steven said. “Standardized testing shows where the student is in development, but it doesn’t tell you how they learn. I was successful in theater, but that’s because it was a group thing. I was unable to learn well in a solo environment, and the system in Albuquerque has to take that kind of learning into account.”
Young Alumni Success Stories Doctoral Candidate Publishes HIV Research Merissa Bruns (BS 2015) is part of a research team with an article titled “A Quantitative Live-Cell Superresolution Imaging Framework for Measuring the Mobility of Single Molecules at Sites of Virus Assembly,” published in the medical science journal, Pathogens. Merissa, currently pursuing a Ph.D. in biophysics at the University of Denver,
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Green & Silver | May 2021
said her research traces how HIV-1, the virus known to cause AIDS, assembles itself inside a human host cell. “I use two fluorescently labeled markers to label the assembly proteins,” Merissa said. “One marker is an antibody fragment, known as BG18. That is my pride and joy, as I was the first to microbially reproduce and purify the potent fragment proven successful in labeling HIV-1 during assembly. “Having this paper published brought me joy, as we have now contributed information and a powerful tool in the fight against the AIDS pandemic.”
