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UCLA 2018

2018 UCLA Senior of the Year

Amitoj Singh: 2018 UCLA Senior of the Year

by Cecilia Patricia James September 3, 2018
written by Cecilia Patricia James

During his time at UCLA, MIMG student Amitoj Singh found a love for community service and a desire to always take the extra step.

“UCLA has encouraged me to want more and never settle for less,” he said.  “Just coming here and developing a big work ethic helps me strive to be the best person I can be.”

Singh, a Sikh student from an immigrant family, moved from the Fresno to Los Angeles and like many freshmen, he initially struggled to find where he belonged at such a massive university.

“I had never lived on my own, and I come from a close family,” he said.  “Separating that connection was hard and I had to adjust to a fast-paced environment.”

Singh was initially struck by the diversity he found in Los Angeles, and said he had the opportunity to meet students from outside the small group he had in high school, who all came from a similar background.   By interacting with students from various backgrounds, he said he became more accepting and acknowledging of the role diversity plays on UCLA’s campus.

Singh said he feels much of his experience at UCLA has been shaped by his academic pursuits.  He switched his major from Chemistry to MIMG to cater more to his medical school aspirations. He said he developed strong skills in writing and critical thinking.  His classes challenged him to study beyond just memorizing facts, and he had to learn to solve problems logically.

During his four years at UCLA, Singh also dedicated much of his time to his community service activities.  He said he first realized the importance of community service growing up in Fresno, where many of his classmates were from middle to low-income families.  He said he feels lucky to be able to attend college, and he enjoys using his advantages to volunteer within his community.

“Being in my position, I feel like I have to (give back),” Singh said.  “It’s like a need I have to fulfill.  I feel like my life has revolved around it.”

Singh has worked with the Bhagat Puran Singh Health Initiative (BPSHI) for the past four years, where he helps check vitals of Sikh community members at local temples.  He personally started a program within the club to create pamphlets that provide important health, exercise, and dietary information.

He has also worked with Share-a-Meal at UCLA, where he helped deliver veggie burritos and other supplies to the homeless in Venice Beach.

“I’ve realized how unfortunate some people are, especially in our local communities, and how important it is to help others,” he said.

After graduation, Singh plans to take a gap year and volunteer at his former high school before attending medical school.  He plans to teach a research course over the summer for low to middle-income students, and he will tutor students throughout the year in math and science.

In his free time, Singh is an avid basketball fan and played intramural basketball almost every quarter at UCLA, in addition to regularly attending games at the Staples Center and Pauley Pavillion.

Singh emphasized UCLA helped him grow and learn to take advantage of every opportunity, and he encouraged UCLA students to do the same.

“The organizations I’m involved in have helped me feel more at home and develop strong relationships with other people,” he said.

Photographed by Ryan Glatt
Photographed by Ryan Glatt
Photographed by Ryan Glatt
Photographed by Ryan Glatt
Photographed by Ryan Glatt
September 3, 2018 0 comment
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2018 UCLA Senior of the Year

Ernesto Javier Rojas: 2018 UCLA Senior of the Year

by Raunak Devanji September 3, 2018
written by Raunak Devanji

Ernesto Javier Rojas helped with his aunt’s delivery of a baby boy.

Rojas, a fourth-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student, was working as an EMT at the time. Noting his interest in the medical field, his aunt had offered to let him stay in the delivery room and interact with her physicians. Rojas had already begun lab research at UCLA, and said the experience of witnessing birth sparked his fascination with reproductive health.

Rojas now works in two research labs, where he studies the role of stem cells in restoring fertility and where he focuses on the ethics of using CRISPR/Cas9 technology to genetically engineer embryos, respectively.

Until recently, the genetic engineering of embryos was something people only talked about. The technology was portrayed in films like “Gattaca,” where it created a social divide by enabling those who could afford it, Rojas said. Because CRISPR/Cas9 technology is so new and so cheap, Rojas said there are concerns about future implementation. His work now focuses on preventing impending dangers, especially in the state of California, where there are almost no regulations on what one can do with embryos.

“We found a company that will sell me a $200 kit to edit bacteria, and that’s a little dangerous because if I get the right bacterial strain, I can cause severe e.coli, poisoning and start messing with stuff like that,” Rojas said. “How is it that this technology can be used in this field that is basically the wild west of reproductive health? California is that area, so (there are) dangers of having that technology in the hands of an open free market with no regulations.”

Rojas frequently visits his high school in nearby Downey to talk about his research and inspire younger students to take the route he did. He recently looked at his graduating class profile and found an overwhelming percentage of his class were Hispanic or Latino and qualified for school lunch services based on need, himself included; yet many of his classmates did not meet the minimum requirements to attend a California State or a University of California school.

As an immigrant from Honduras and first generation college student, Rojas said it can often be difficult to carve a path for oneself, especially in STEM.

“The first thing I wanted to do was just get into college and go to UCLA and start doing that. It’s like, I’m always the first one to tread a path that hasn’t been tread before,” he said. “Kids like me, we get this impostor syndrome sometimes, where we’re like, ‘Is it just that I slipped in through the cracks?’ because I don’t see anyone like me in my family–in my community–who is doing something like this.’”

But UCLA put all students on an equal platform for success, Rojas said. Having excelled in a field of his interest and secured funding for his research, Rojas said he hopes to turn his attention toward helping the next generation of students like himself.

“I’m applying to some of the top schools in the world, and I got a great MCAT score,” Rojas said. “I’m not going to be getting into a medical school or a graduate school because I’m Hispanic or Latino–I’m going to be getting in because I earned it.”

Photographed by Pablo Muñoz
Photographed by Pablo Muñoz
Photographed by Pablo Muñoz
Photographed by Pablo Muñoz
Photographed by Pablo Muñoz
September 3, 2018 0 comment
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2018 UCLA Senior of the Year

Kimberly Goodwin: 2018 UCLA Senior of the Year

by Wendy Li September 3, 2018
written by Wendy Li

Kimberly Goodwin’s weekly routine at UCLA involved juggling her 3.975 GPA in Applied Mathematics Major and Statistics Minor, tutoring students online and in person, and working long weekend shifts at a job near home.

“I really didn’t have time to procrastinate, since I was so busy,” she said.

Throughout Goodwin’s four years at UCLA, she continued working weekends at a part-time job she started after her freshman year in her hometown, Chino. She’d spend the weekdays at UCLA, and transport home to Chino on the weekends for her job.

“It was kind of like jumping between two worlds,” she said. “I was gone every weekend when people would hang-out and spend time together.”

Goodwin spent her weekdays tutoring students, both online and in person. Her passion for teaching math started in seventh grade, when she knew she enjoyed solving math problems, but wasn’t interested in the idea of doing math for its sake. Her first opportunity to tutor came after she helped her substitute teacher solve a math question in eighth grade,

“After class, she asked if I could teach her daughter Geometry,” she said “As an eighth grader, I thought ‘I guess I could do that.’”

Her tutoring career continued at UCLA, where she worked for the Department of Mathematics  as a course reader, and later as a learning assistant for the Math 31A class.

Goodwin also taught online as a video creator for a tutoring company called GRITI during her freshman and sophomore years, following an opportunity which arose during a class.

“I applied and sent in a video of me explaining a random physics question and I was hired as a video expert,” she said.

She made complete video series for undergraduate math courses at UCLA, working remotely following class syllabi and homework problems for content.

“Originally, I was making videos for UCLA students. Then, these videos spread to other UC schools, and other Cal-state schools,” she said. “By my sophomore year, it ended up being distributed to other universities across the nation. I had a wide audience, so I felt like all the time I put into it, all the planning, wasn’t put to waste.”

Goodwin also volunteered for the Reading to Kids organization, spending the second Saturday of each month with local elementary school students.

Goodwin said she would eventually like to teach high school mathematics, since she said high school students are at a more impressionable age and are more open to positive influence.

“My goal is to instill confidence in students, especially when it comes to math, which may be a polarizing subject,” she said. “I want to make an impact on students at that age.”

Despite the additional time commitment of her weekend shifts and tutoring sessions, Goodwin managed to maintain a 3.975 GPA and graduated summa cum laude.

“From the beginning of each quarter, I’d try to start being on top of things, because I know it’s really hard to catch up in a quarter system when you fall behind,” she said.

Goodwin suggested students interested in STEM subjects approach their studies with a growth mindset.

“Growth mindset is believing that intellectual capabilities are malleable, and can wane if you don’t work on it, or grow and develop with practice,” she said, “Even if you hadn’t been good at math or science before, with conscious effort, lots of practice and careful guidance, you can really develop capacity to understand material deeply and thoroughly.”

Photographed by Kaylie Sagara
Photographed by Kaylie Sagara
Photographed by Kaylie Sagara
Photographed by Kaylie Sagara
Photographed by Kaylie Sagara
Photographed by Kaylie Sagara
September 3, 2018 0 comment
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2018 UCLA Senior of the Year

Neil J. D’Silva: 2018 UCLA Senior of the Year

by Ryan Leou September 3, 2018
written by Ryan Leou

Neil D’Silva’s advice to incoming Bruins? In the words of Bruce Lee: Be water, my friend.

D’Silva had to heed Lee’s call for resilience throughout his time at UCLA on his way toward graduating on the pre-med track with a degree in molecular, cell, and developmental biology.

“I will admit that sophomore and junior year, and even portions of my senior year, were filled with disappointments, rejections, and failures,” he said. “It would have been easier to leave the pre-med life and decide on something easier.”

His discovery of new pockets of campus that helped him grow and thrive led him to become a leader in the Community Service Commission of the undergraduate student government, UniCamp, and the Resilience Peer Network.

At CSC, he volunteered with several tutorial and healthcare projects, such as Kids Korner, Project Literacy, Pilipinos for Community Health, and Flying Samaritans at UCLA.

His time at UniCamp saw him working with older campers as an advisor, where one summer, a cancellation of a session meant he wouldn’t be able to work with the young people with which he was planning to host. However, he was touched when his teammates

And, as a fully certified Resilience Peer, he led support groups sessions for students with anxiety and depression to help them meet self-determined goals for recovery

The connection he forges with people on a deep, personal level really draws him to community service, D’Silva said.

He added his experience with the various organizations of which he has been a part ultimately played a part in securing his future plans, more so than many of his UCLA classes.

Though his ultimate goal is to become a doctor and practice medicine, D’Silva said he recognizes changes in health management are made not made at the doctor-patient level, but rather the population level, requiring more effort.

D’Silva’s service to communities in need continues with his travels to China with the Peace Corps, where he will teach English for two years before returning to the U.S. He said he plans to start preparing to apply for medical school when he returns, but that his time with the corps will be one of self reflection and for him to explore potential side projects.

Because of the Peace Corps’ training schedule, he missed most of his commencement festivities, but D’Silva said he is excited to start his journey.

“I feel like I don’t stress out about things until I’m in the situation,” he said. “I won’t feel all the  excitement until I land in China and I step foot outside of that plane.”

Photographed by Toshi Shimizu
Photographed by Toshi Shimizu
Photographed by Toshi Shimizu
September 3, 2018 0 comment
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2018 UCLA Senior of the Year

Mercedes Cornelius: 2018 UCLA Senior of the Year

by Linda Xu September 3, 2018
written by Linda Xu

Mercedes Cornelius originally wanted to be a lawyer when she grew up.

For a school career day, when everyone else dressed up as his or her favorite actor, she donned a long cloak in her attempt to be a judge.

However, the now biophysics and applied mathematics student has dedicated her last five years at UCLA to laboratory research and STEM education for youth

Born and raised in Florida, Cornelius moved at an early age to California to live with her uncle, a physicist. In Florida, most math classes only went up to pre-Algebra and Cornelius had her sights set on studying law in college; however, her uncle convinced her to give physics a try.

“When I first got my hands on a physics problem, I was like ‘Oh, I’ve got to be a physicist,” she said.

During the first few weeks of her freshman year at UCLA, Cornelius founded the National Society of Empowered Youth (NSEY), which aims to encourage underrepresented student groups to gain interest in the maths and sciences. Members used accessible modes of learning such as exploring the physics of music or the chemistry of cooking to inspire students.

“When I first got to UCLA I was like ‘Oh man, there are all these resources I can use, I’ve got to give back’ because I want some other kids to see how beautiful physics is too, maybe it’s for them,” she said. “Just the fact that they would be exposed to it is something different, because I wasn’t exposed to it at all, but I ended up loving it.”

Cornelius said this was her most memorable experience in her NSEY work happened while she was working with students from the Jackie Robinson Foundation. One student watched a series of videos, got all the concepts right, and  was so excited he could hardly speak, going up to his mother afterwards to proclaim his excitement.

The other primary aspect of her UCLA career lies in research – Cornelius currently works as an undergraduate researcher in a lab where she aids in growing a smaller version of a human organ on a chip – a micro system that will keep the organ running. She’s helped with creating several organs on chips in an effort to study cancer cells, which ties into her interest in oncology.

“It’s an area that I think has a lot of room for improvement, a lot of room for innovation,” she said. “Cancer in itself is just a very interesting thing – it gets me – just how complex it is…it doesn’t even have to be understood simply, but just to be understood, I like doing that.”

Eventually Cornelius aims to complete an M.D.–P.h.D., a dual doctoral degree which will allow her to do research, specifically in oncology, as well as see patients. However, before that, Cornelius will be traveling to China to do research at Peking University, as part of their pharmaceutical sciences program. She said she is excited to study traditional Chinese medicine, learn martial arts, and speak Mandarin, which she has been learning on her own.

Photographed by Pablo Muñoz
Photographed by Pablo Muñoz
Photographed by Pablo Muñoz
Photographed by Pablo Muñoz
September 3, 2018 0 comment
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2018 UCLA Senior of the Year

Regina Brodell: 2018 UCLA Senior of the Year

by Ryan Leou September 3, 2018
written by Ryan Leou

During her first week at UCLA, Regina Brodell walked through the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Gardens asking herself what she hoped to accomplish in her time in college.

Putting down thoughts in her school-themed notebook, she said she was struck by the school’s motto: “Let there be light.” Then and there, she vowed to herself to be a light for those in the dark.

Brodell herself has experience being in the dark, with the loss of her father and experiencing homelessness. She also raised her two younger siblings from a young age before they came under the guardianship of an older sister.

“When I began classes freshman year, I struggled to see myself as capable of accomplishing anything,” she said, “because I saw the world through a heart filled with pain.”

Brodell compared her academic journey to a fable about a man afraid of his shadow, running from it until he died of exhaustion. Though she initially felt shame to be a former foster youth, bouncing from home to home, and tried to run from the stigma, she eventually learned to befriend her shadow. Additionally, she said the different support systems she found around campus allowed her to rest in the shade, where her shadow blended into the background.

Brodell singled out two programs at UCLA helped her embrace her identity: the Bruin Guardian Scholars Program and the UCLA Teaching, Intervention, Education and Services for Families Foster Youth Mentoring program.

Through BGS, she met people with similar experiences to her own and eventually found a sense of family and companionship with her peers. Similarly, through the TIES Foster Youth Mentoring Program, she was able to establish a bond with her mentee for the past four years, and as her mentee enters high school, Brodell said she intends to keep that bond going through the college application process.

Brodell said her work with BGS and TIES have taught her the importance of treating all people equally and loving them, working towards a future that excludes no one.

“If I had to sum up in one sentence what UCLA has done for me, it’s taught me to always be a learner,” Brodell said. “And I want to take that wherever I go.”

Brodell also said during the fifth annual Winston C. Doby Distinguished Lecture by Rep. John Lewis in 2017, she was moved by his call to action to “find a way to get in the way” when one witnesses injustice. She said she aspired to embody in her life the values she admired in his: courage, accountability, service, and empowerment, among a host of other traits.

Bodell founded Bread as Bridge, a service club whose members serve homeless individuals in Westwood; and Restorative Justice, which takes students to visit incarcerated youth.

“I just feel really grateful for where I am in life right now,” she said.  “I want to be able to give back, (to) be what I didn’t have growing up, and give back what I didn’t have.”

Brodell will spend the upcoming year as a research assistant at the UCLA Nathanson Family Resilience Center, housed within the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, after which she plans to apply to graduate school. Her research will focus on working with youth who have experienced trauma and teaching them methods for regulating their emotions.

Photographed by Toshi Shimizu
Photographed by Toshi Shimizu
Photographed by Toshi Shimizu
Photographed by Toshi Shimizu
September 3, 2018 0 comment
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