From today's Santa Cruz Sentinel: "As the first person in her family to graduate high school and a Latina woman studying to become a research scientist, UC Santa Cruz undergrad Stefanie Brizuela is used to defying odds and expectations. But that doesn’t make earning a prestigious research scholarship from the National Institute of health any less sweet.

The 20-year-old biomolecular engineering major [in the Jack Baskin School of Engineering] from Bakersfield, found out Aug. 2 she is among the nation’s few young researchers selected for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Undergraduate Scholarship Program. She said she hopes her newest accomplishment can serve as an example to younger students from disadvantaged backgrounds who aspire to become scientists.

'For me it’s a success that the community can take part in, that underrepresented minorities can take part in.' Brizuela said. 'It’s something I can bring back to my community and share my path.'"

Read more about Stefanie in the link in the first comment. She is the third year, bioengineering major, RMI Scholar, BD2K Summer scholar, UGSP Scholar, USSA Delegate, first-generation, Latina, LGBTQ and woman in #STEM who defies categories and labels. We here at the Genomics Institute and UCSC Genomics Institute Office of Diversity are extremely proud of Stefanie, not only for her accomplishments as well as being an inspiration to students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue their dreams.

Living in Santa Cruz, it can be easy to forget that we have a world class research institution right in our backyard. If you don’t interact with the University on a regular basis, you may not realize that there are BIG (we are taking gigantically important) things happening up at the UC Santa Cruz (UCSC). For instance, you may not know that UCSC is currently ranked 4th in the world for research influence, as measured by the number of times UCSC faculty’s published work is cited by scholars around the world. You may also not know that there is a team up at UCSC who is taking on pediatric cancer. City of Santa Cruz Economic Development Office's Amanda Rotella sat down with Olena Morozova and David Haussler to learn more about their big thing: the Treehouse Childhood Cancer Initiative, which is working to better understand and better treat cancer in children.
To see the in-depth feature, click through to the link in the first comment.