Team

Luke Beckman

Luke is a sophomore from Arlington, Virginia. He is majoring in Human Biology and minoring in International Relations. Before Stanford, Luke was heavily involved with music, Boy Scouts, and Rowing. He made Eagle Scout and continued his rowing career though his freshman year at Stanford. He is now a member of the Stanford Triathlon team. Luke has always been involved in service and is the managing director of the Stanford Dance Marathon, working to educate, inspire, and mobilize the Stanford Community to fight HIV/AIDS. Luke is also a Haas Public Service Leadership Fellow. He has recently become involved in international service work and is currently the recruiting coordinator and on-site student leader for Global Healthcare Project, a public health organization that is based in the highlands of Guatemala. He is interested in the field of disaster response due to his experience during and after Hurricane Katrina as a member of the Red Cross Disaster Response team and also from being an SIE team member.

Francisco Cai

Francisco is a freshman from New York City. His major is tentatively Human Biology. He hopes to discover during his four years at Stanford something he would love doing for his first career. Thus, he has taken a wide range of classes these past few quarters and is excited to contribute to the SIE team. In his free time, Francisco enjoys playing basketball and participating in dorm events.

Emily Gorbaty

Hailing from Baltimore, Maryland, Emily is a sophomore majoring in Engineering with a concentration in Atmosphere/Energy and minoring in Classic History. She has participated on the Stanford Canoe and Kayak Team. Currently she writes and edits for Stanford Scientific Magazine as an Engineering and Technology section editor, tutors as a Peer Writing Tutor at the Stanford Writing Center, and participates on the core leadership team of Future Social Innovators Network. This past summer she lived on a sailboat in the British Virgin Islands interning to become a PADI Divemaster. In addition to scuba diving, she loves traveling. This coming summer she will research the aeolian abrasion of Martian materials at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory by analyzing images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. In the fall, she will study abroad in either India or China and then backpack through Southeast Asia. Recently, she has been considering a career involving renewable energy implementation in China, India, and Southeast Asia, but she'll enjoy the unpredictable twists and turns of life as they lead her toward a rewarding career.

Fagan Harris

Fagan is a sophomore from Baltimore, Maryland. He is an American Studies major with an emphasis in education, and is writing an honors thesis through the School of Education. Currently the vice president of Stanford Students for Relief, and an active member of Stanford Students taking On Poverty, Fagan is an active member of the Stanford community both on and off campus. Fagan has also tutored second language learners at East Palo Alto Elementary. In the summers of 2005 and 2006, Fagan was a curriculum writer for a county board of education in Maryland, specializing in English Literature curriculum development. As a 2007 Galbraith Fellowship winner, he will be doing research on educational inequalities at Harvard University in June. And as a 2006-2007 Chappell-Lougee Scholarship recipient, he will be developing his own research on alternative reform schools and behavioral norms in Pittsburgh in July. For the remainder of the summer, Fagan will be working with a campaign for Baltimore mayor. During his free time, Fagan loves to listen to music.

Katie Howard

Katie is a sophomore majoring in Mathematics, probably with minors in Computer Science and Economics. She grew up in Hastings, Nebraska. Before Stanford, Katie competed in volleyball and basketball, ran track, participated in her church's youth group, played piano, and edited her high school newspaper. At Stanford, she is involved in her sorority, Chi Omega, and its community service committee. She is a peer mentor and juggles with the Down with Gravity juggling team. She also works in the office of Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY), and will work this summer as a camp counselor for EPGY, helping high school kids learn advanced math. She has held a wide variety of jobs, but she has a long way to go before she finds a career path. She has worked for Head Start, American Family Insurance, the School for Independent Learners, MathPath, Camp Courageous, and the YMCA. Currently, Katie is considering a career in operations research, where she hopes she can put her love of problem solving to good use in the world.

Stephanie Hwang

Although Stephanie's home is only 40 minutes away in Fremont, California, she has found a "home away from home" at Stanford. Before Stanford, Stephanie competed in both tennis and piano. She has played piano since the age of 5 and especially enjoys playing with ensembles - quartets, orchestras, trios. She has even played a four piano Bach concerto! At Stanford, she has taken a break from tennis and piano and has found other niches. Stephanie is a sophomore Human Biology major with an area of concentration in Biotechnological Solutions of Human Disease. She hopes to pursue graduate level nursing when she graduates. Following her passion for medicine, she is a project team leader for SCOPE (Student Clinical Opportunities for Premedical Experience). She is also a private tutor for the Learning Spring, is the Community Service/Philanthropy Vice President of alpha Kappa Delta Phi, is a core member of the Undergraduate Chinese American Association, and is a conference assistant at QuestBridge. Stephanie is passionate about the issue of providing better educational opportunities for low-income students, and she and a partner have created a short documentary on the subject.

Nina Joshi

Nina is from Saratoga, California, and is a sophomore majoring in Engineering with a focus in Product Design. She enjoys creatively applying math and science to real world problems. On campus, Nina is currently the undergraduate representative for the Teaching Assistant Oversight Committee and the Student Initiated Courses Committee, a Cantor Arts Center student guide, a peer mentor, Entertainment co-chair for Big Dance, and Publicity co-Chair for Viennese Ball. In her spare time, Nina adores social dancing, improvisational theatre, making jewelry, and playing with Flash.

Wei Wei Liu

Wei Wei, a sophomore, is from Los Altos Hills, California. She is a Human Biology major with an area of concentration in Biomedical Ethics and Health Care Policy, and is currently considering pursuing a co-terminal degree in Management Science & Engineering. In high school, Wei Wei she was President of the National Honor Society, the Youth Commissioner of Los Altos Hills, captain of the tennis team, and Opinions Editor of her school newspaper. She was also a national youth delegate for the American Red Cross as well as a Basic First Aid Instructor, and these experiences prompted her current interests, which include public health, health policy, and biotechnology. At Stanford, she is involved with the chamber music program (she plays the piano and the violin), Students Taking on Poverty (STOP), and the Forum for American-Chinese Relations (FACES). She is a Haas Public Service Leadership Fellow, a peer mentor, former Freshman Council Representative and Dorm President, as well as a member of the Undergraduate Housing Committee. She also works for Professor David Grusky at the Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality. This summer, Wei Wei plans on traveling to Japan and Taiwan, and then returning to California where she will intern with the Office of Supervisor Liz Kniss in San Jose, and conduct research with the Health Research and Policy Department at Stanford. In the fall, she will be abroad at Oxford studying Biomedical Ethics.

Kaley Skapinsky

Kaley Skapinsky is a sophomore from the small, coastal town of Cape Elizabeth, Maine. In high school, she was involved in National Honor Society, Operation Smile, a volunteer group that raised money to provide corrective surgery for children with facial deformities, policy debate, and the swimming and tennis teams. At Stanford, she is in the process of declaring a major in Human Biology and a minor in Spanish, and is especially interested in public health, particularly among underserved populations. Working as an intern in the physical therapy department of Vaden Health Center, tutoring on-campus workers through the program Habla, and being active in the student group Public Health Initiative keep her very busy, but she loves to enjoy the California sunshine by spending as much time outside as possible. In her free time, she enjoys outdoor sports and activities, such as hiking, sailing, and skiing, and has taught sailing at a yacht club for the past three summers. She also loves to relax under a tree with a good book, is addicted to NPR, and is almost always listening to music, especially classic and alternative rock. She is excited to study abroad next fall in Santiago, Chile, and would like to do international health work before pursuing an MPH and a career in public health.

Jared Sun

Jared Sun is a sophomore student from Fullerton, CA majoring in Human Biology with an area of concentration in Human Behavior and Diplomacy. He is currently EMT certified and sails for the Stanford Sailing team. During his free time, Jared does basic EMT work and has volunteered with the Stanford Global Healthcare Project in Guatemala. Jared hopes to pursue a career that keeps him on his toes such as one in emergency or international medicine.

Ellen Truxaw

Ellen is a sophomore double majoring in English Literature and Biological Sciences. She is from Santa Ana, California. Ellen has always had an intense and unique passion for understanding infectious disease. She fostered this love through personal research and through her high school's International Baccalaureate program. Ellen spent much of her high school career running a tutoring business, volunteering for the Red Cross, directing an after-school art program, and hiking through the Sierras and the Southwest. At Stanford, Ellen discovered her love for literature and now immerses herself in as many English classes as she can fit into her premed course load. Aside from classes, Ellen stays busy by volunteering with Stanford Dance Marathon, Arbor Free Clinic, and Ravenswood Writes as well as by serving as dorm government president for Freshman/Sophomore College. She hopes to pursue a career in medicine and public health.

Kevin Webb

Kevin Webb is a sophomore planning to major in Human Biology with an area of concentration on virology, and to minor in Product Design. He was born in Florida and has since lived in Ohio, Texas, and three places in California. From fifth grade through high school graduation, he was heavily involved in a program called Odyssey of the Mind, where he worked in teams to generate creative answers to unique problems. By senior year, he had gone to world finals twice and begun two other teams. He was also involved in both speech and debate, and he was co-editor of his yearbook. In college, he has worked on film projects (both formal and informal), and has had a great time organizing small but fun dorm events. Last summer, he worked as a marketing intern at a startup GPS company, where he researched traffic data information flow in competitors' products and he created a daily newsletter.