FEATURED HONORS STUDENTS
Each member of the Honors College performs Honors Activities- meet some of our students and their outstanding Honors work.
Dima Alfawakhiri
Dima has had a pivotal impact on the experience of freshmen and transfer engineering students, through her role as the teaching assistant for ENGR 100: Introduction to Engineering. Dima uses her teaching assistantship as her honors activity, working with over 100 new students to help them better understand university policies and prepare them for their undergraduate engineering studies. She answers questions and assists in daily class discussions, helps students with their resumes, and occasionally delivers presentations about engineering opportunities such as research, internships, professional societies, and scholarships. Dima is actively working towards helping new students lay a firm foundation in the College of Engineering so they can reach their potential during their time at UIC. She was also a UIC nominee in fall 2007 for the Goldwater Scholarship, a prestigious award for students pursuing scientific, math, and engineering related careers.
Joel Ebert
As an English major with a concentration on Cultural and Media Studies, Joel is working on improving his skills as a student and activist through various Honors College activities. Currently he is taking the helm on a project to organize a series of different panel discussions on politics throughout the semester. A busy student, Joel has served as an Undergraduate Research Assistant and completed additional work in classes to deepen his understanding of interpersonal communication. He has embraced the opportunity to work closely with a Communication professor in his research on evolution and intelligent design and expanded a philosophy course through writing a supplemental paper. Joel has cultivated his ability to discuss global and national issues with fellow students through a current affairs course, which has enabled him to gain a perspective on students’ vast opinions. This course inspired him to found SPEAK, a student group designed to foster a setting to support dialogue among students outside the classroom to discuss controversial topics.
Anand Sandesara
Anand Sandesara, a senior majoring in history has been awarded an Ambassadorial Scholarship from the Rotary Foundation to Study Abroad. The scholarship is valued at $23,000. He will study for one year starting in early 2010 at a sub-Saharan African or Indian university, to be assigned this December. "The universities I selected are in major urban centers of Africa or South Asia -- areas of the world in dire need of public health practitioners," he said. Sandesara will take graduate-level courses in public health and will apply credits earned toward a master of public health degree. He also plans to earn an M.D. degree, then enter a primary care medicine practice, perhaps abroad or in an underserved area of the United States.
Nilay Shah
Nilay has made the most of his almost three years at UIC, using his experiences as an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the HON 225 program as a springboard into the world of medical research. He works in the Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation at the UIC College of Medicine, where he has contributed to a wide range of projects from studying the biological basis of learning to analyzing the effects of traumatic brain injury. His diligent work has also provided the opportunity to contribute to a project dealing with the components of human aging using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). His active participation has allowed Nilay to better understand the depth and breadth of scientific research, and appreciate more fully the function of the human brain in behavior.
Annie Velarde
Annie has taken a fulfilling and diverse approach in the various activities she has completed for Honors College credit. As a student of nursing at UIC, she spent a semester doing volunteer work with the NBC/Telemundo Homework Hotline at the downtown Chicago NBC tower. Annie spent evenings answering phone calls from students in grades K-12 who had trouble with their homework. Some of her recent pursuits include completing a personal research project through the College of Medicine. Her hard work from that experience garnered a first place award at the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium; she presented a characterization of a chicken ovarian cancer cell line, to validate the use of a chicken as a model to study human ovarian cancer. Annie has also found time to focus her research endeavors within the College of Nursing, working with a professor to examine teenage pregnancy rates among the Latina population.