''This spring I had plans to visit the Dominican Republic, as part of an Alternative Spring Break trip in Las Canas. Because of the pandemic, I chose instead to volunteer locally with opioid users. Being part of a strong community is very important to me, and being a valuable member is even more important. As an EMT, I’ve seen how opioids affect a diverse population in our community and look forward to seeing how I can assist with their recovery. Thank you for giving me one less thing to worry about as I work toward my goal of serving my community through medicine.''

''Financially, this past year has been difficult for me and my family. My mom, a single mother, lost her position as a production manager when her company decided to put a hold on production until the pandemic ends. Due to my mother’s financial situation, my sister and I struggled with loan approval for college. By maintaining my work-study position and receiving a generous scholarship, I am able to continue receiving the wonderful education that Northeastern University provides.''

''I am someone who loves learning, meeting people, and exploring new cultures. My experience at Northeastern has been better than what I could have imagined. Since last year, however, my parents have fallen into a complicated personal and financial situation. I went on co-op in January, which was not my original plan, to save money to support myself financially. I did not know whether I was going to be able to return to Northeastern and finish my education, but then I received my award letter for a scholarship. I have been thankful every day for every single dollar that I have received, as it means I am able to keep being a part of this amazing community – both on and off campus. Thank you for the incredible support you’ve provided to me. It has been a deciding factor in my academic career.''

''After my first co-op the trajectory of my career after college changed. I fell in love with biotechnology and the implications that it has on improving the outcomes of sick patients and their lives. I have always been adamant about changing the world. We, as humans, must leave the world better than we found it, and part of my college search was to find the best way I could contribute to improving mankind. I know now that I can achieve that through biotechnology, which will also help me in some of my future endeavors.

I plan to attain a master’s in biotechnology through the PlusOne program offered at Northeastern. I also plan to work in biotech—specifically in immunology, because I have a passion for helping cancer patients. Eventually, I would like to launch my own start-up and run a biotech company myself.''

''With your continued support, I have accepted an offer for my first unpaid co-op opportunity in the Early Psychosis Research Program at Harvard Medical School's Psychosis Research Program, where I will pariticipate in activities for the CEDAR Clinic—one of only a handful of specialized programs for youth at clinical high-risk for psychosis across the country. This opportunity will be instrumental in gaining the skills I’ll need as a future graduate student carrying out my own research.

The impact of your financial support also allows me to take on an independent study as a teacher’s assistant in Dr. William Sharp’s upper division Theories of Personality class! I cannot thank you enough for your compassion. It enables my career growth and promotes my aspirations in psychological research.''

''Northeastern provides a community in which many ambitious and hardworking students gather and work together to achieve goals that some might consider too high or far-reaching to attain. Being here this past year has encouraged me to walk confidently and dream even bigger because it is possible. I just have to step on that path and not look back (or at least not too often).''

''With this award, we have been developing a handheld microsurgery tool to improve brain surgery outcomes. In aggressive forms of brain cancer, namely glioblastoma, it can be quite difficult to remove the disease with current methods. We aim to reduce the rate of recurrence in these cases, a problem that is far too common with no real solution as it stands now.

The device that we are designing would allow surgeons to scan the surgical bed and receive video feedback showing the location of cancer deposits that were left behind and may be inaccessible via conventional means.

Furthermore, upon locating these small deposits of cancer cells, the probe can be activated into the ablation operating mode to ablate the cancer cells in view. We have been developing this handheld probe with the intention that it will allow surgeons to further improve their treatment capabilities.

With the funding that we were awarded, we have been able to implement additional imaging capabilities and signal markers that allow us to more directly test a variety of system parameters and much more easily interpret the results of these tests.

Ultimately, we want this device to be one that is commercially available to neurosurgeons around the world in the hopes that we can provide improved outcomes to as many patients as possible. We also see quite a bit of potential for our technology to serve similar purposes in other highly precise surgical procedures as we continue to improve on the details of the design. All this work has been particularly exciting for me as I hope to continue my role in medical device research as my career continues to progress.''

''Donor funding can provide immersive academic experiences that allows undergraduate students to engage deeply with the scientific process and experience what a career in science could feel like. While students obtain one-of-a-kind experiences, their efforts are also immensely crucial to the Coastal Sustainability Institute and the Marine Science Center as a whole. Their work enables our faculty and graduate students to push their research further, allowing them to arrive at a deeper understanding of many important questions.

Thanks to donor investment, we can provide learning opportunities to these bright students, while practicing our important and innovative research to find solutions to the many problems facing our coastal communities.''