At age 17, Patricia Penkoske, MD ’74, dreamed of being a Pan Am international stewardess. Her father made her a deal: she had to go to college for two years first, and then she could pursue anything she wanted. She enrolled at what was then Lindenwood College for Women in St. Charles, Missouri, and loved it. Majors in biology, chemistry, and art history started her on a path that brought her to Washington University School of Medicine in 1970.
By Grizelda McClelland Stephanie Judycki claims theater was her first childhood passion. And years later, as a graduate of the Program in Occupational Therapy at Washington University School of Medicine, she still retains an actor’s energy and acute skills of observation. As a full-time therapist at Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, Stephanie routinely notes […]
Sarah says she is incredibly proud to attend WashU and she “learned here that I can make a career out of my intellectual curiosity.” “As a first-generation college student, I thought my dreams could only be of a certain size,” says Sarah del Carmen Camacho. A global studies and education major, Sarah explores the relationships […]
Portia Nartey is the first in her family to complete high school, the first to complete college, and the first to attain a graduate degree. She was recently accepted in three competitive PhD programs and has a long-term professional goal to work for the United Nations. Growing up in Ghana, Portia saw how cultural barriers […]
Aaron Samuels defies labels. He is a spoken word artist and a published poet, author of the 2013 collection Yarmulkes & Fitted Caps. He is a corporate strategist who worked at Bain & Co. and an entrepreneur who co-founded and served as chief operating officer of Blavity, the largest global Black media company for millennials […]
Stephanie Mbida leads no ordinary life. At age 14, she had already graduated high school and would spend the next four years of her life traveling her parents’ home country of Cameroon to advise world leaders on social issues. Prior to this, the Olin Business School MBA candidate says “New York was all [she] knew,” […]
At the age of eight, Jennifer Dionne planned to pursue a career in the paranormal. An avid fan of the X-files, she aspired to be an investigator—an Agent Scully—uncovering clues and unpacking supernatural mysteries. Raised as an only child in Rhode Island, Jen had great freedom to indulge her inquisitive inclinations. Her mother, a nurse, […]
When she first arrived on campus, Sheilly Moreno thought she wanted to pursue premed, but WashU helped her explore multiple academic interests that took her all over the world. During her four years as an undergraduate, Sheilly studied in four countries: China, Japan, South Korea, and Spain. In the spring of 2021, she earned bachelor’s […]