Emma Sandoe

When Emma Sandoe came to UC San Diego, she wanted to become a physician. Then she spent a summer working in a chemotherapy unit. Sandoe found herself processing a whole lot of paperwork, which sometimes meant patients couldn’t get the help they needed right away. That’s when she started thinking that her organizing skills might be better put to use reforming health care.

“I’m really passionate about improving our health care system so that everyone in the United States can afford it,” said Sandoe, who will head this fall to George Washington University to pursue a master's degree in public health policy. “Saving lives is what it really comes down to.”

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Jeff Mounzer

Roughly 4 1/2 years ago, Jeff Mounzer found out that he had been accepted to Stanford, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego. He had to decide where he would go. He chose UCSD and says he has never looked back since.

“I discovered that UCSD’s engineering school is one of the best in the country—and getting better all the time,” he said. “I never regretted that choice.”

Over the past four years as an undergraduate here, Mounzer has put in a lot of time to make sure that the Jacobs School of Engineering keeps striving. He had served as president of the school’s Triton Engineering Student Council and has helped grow the organization’s budget and reach. He also helped expand Engineers Week activities on campus. Mounzer has recently received an Award for Excellence from the UCSD alumni association for his efforts.

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Pouya Jamshidi

As a child in his native Iran, Pouya Jamshidi used to get goose bumps when he listened to classical music. He decided he wanted to be an opera conductor, an ambition that he held on to until graduating from high school.

Five years ago, Jamshidi came to the United States and started learning about neuroscience. He got goose bumps again. He decided he wanted to become a neuroscientist.

Jamshidi, who still harbors a deep love of music, said he feels all the years he spent studying to become a conductor have prepared him to become a neurosurgeon and teaching physician.

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Yolanda Richards

During her junior year, Yolanda Richards made a bold move: she went to study for a year in Ghana. She came back convinced that all students should get the opportunity to study abroad. She’s been advocating for this cause ever since.

“There is so much beauty in other countries,” she said.

Richards, an urban studies and planning major, works in UCSD’s Education Abroad Program office. She also is a resident advisor at Thurgood Marshall College and has served as an orientation leader. After graduating, she plans to serve in AmeriCorps. Then, she will be off to graduate school.

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Shannon Dulaney

Eight years ago, when she was just 13, Shannon Dulaney took a trip with her church’s youth group to Guatemala. They did construction work at a missionary institution, visited orphanages and explored local markets.

This week, Dulaney is back in Guatemala again, this time with Alternative Spring Breaks, a program, which allows students to take one-week service trips to foreign countries at the end of the spring quarter. She is helping build an irrigation system for a school serving developmentally delayed adults and children.

These two trips nicely bookend Dulaney’s life so far, which has been dedicated to activism, service and traveling abroad. In the past four years, she has served as a site leader for Alternative Spring Breaks, a co-founder of the Center for Social Progress at UCSD and the chair of the campus’ chapter of the California Public Interest Research Group.

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