Students

Matthew Ochoa

Major: Neuroscience

Graduation year: 2027

Focus areas: Social determinants of health; Preventative Care; Affordable Healthcare

Email: mo57@rice.edu

Barakat Ibrahim

Major: BioSciences

Minors: Medical Humanities

Graduation year: 2027

Focus areas: Immigration

Email: bai1@rice.edu

Emily London

Major: Social Policy Analysis, Linguistics

Minor: Environmental Science

Graduation year: 2025

Focus areas: Housing, Community development

Email: eml12@rice.edu

Matthew Haacke

Major: BioSciences

Minor: Medical Humanities

Graduation year: 2027

Focus areas: Criminal justice, transportation, mental health, immigration, queer rights (open to many more)

Email: bai1@rice.edu

Joshua Adegoke

Major: Political Science & Sociology

Graduation year: 2027

Focus areas: Housing & Healthcare

Email: jda12@rice.edu

Nikhil Mummaneni

Major: Cognitive Science

Minor: Spanish

Graduation year: 2025

Focus areas: Healthcare inequality

Email: nvm3@rice.edu

Kimberly Dorsey

Major: Comoputational/Applied Math

Graduation year: 2025

Focus areas: Education, mental health

Email: kwd2@rice.edu

Josie Feeney

Major: Chemistry (BS), Spanish and Portuguese (BA)

Minor: Biochemistry & Cell Biology

Graduation year: 2025

Focus areas: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and increasing the percentage of minorities in the STEM field through science outreach at underserved elementary schools in the Houston area and fostering a love for science through biweekly, free 1 hour lessons with 30-45 students at each school for a total of 5 sessions

Email: jmf11@rice.edu

Somya Mittal

Major: Cognitive Science, Psychology

Minor: Biochemistry & Cell Biology

Graduation year: 2025

Focus areas: disability studies, neurodiversity, mental health, domestic violence

Email: sm174@rice.edu

Samrithaa Balakrishnan

Minors: Medical Humanities

Email: sb150@rice.edu

Shriya Pendyala

Major: Neuroscience and Economics

Graduation year: 2026

Focus areas: Providing patients with personalized memoirs of hospital experiences curated through 1-on-1 conversations between patients and organization volunteers.

Email: sp202@rice.edu

Josie Feeney

Major: Chemistry (BS), Spanish and Portuguese (BA)

Minor: Biochemistry & Cell Biology

Graduation year: 2025

Focus areas: I am interested in working on increasing diversity in the STEM workforce by inspiring a love for science and the STEM field in a project called Kids Are Scientists Too. The STEM workforce is 89% white and 72% male, according to the NSF. At Kids Are Scientists Too, we go out to elementary schools, especially underserved ones, and perform science experiments with 3rd through 5th grade students after school. The lessons are 100% free of charge to the school because we do our own fundraising and promotion in order to buy the materials ourselves. I love KAST because each volunteer (Rice undergraduate students only) gets to manage a small table of 3 to 5 students. Each student gets to interact hands-on with the experiment. We also make the curriculum ourselves and make sure it aligns with STAAR Performance Standards so that the students are getting supplemental science support for these important exams.

Email: jmf11@rice.edu

Shrutika Gupta

Major: Biosciences

Minors: Medical Humanities, Global Health Technologies

Graduation year: 2025

Focus areas: Maternal and child health, disparities in healthcare

Email: sg121@rice.edu

Reem Abbas

Major: Civil & Environmental Engineering

Minors: Energy & Water Sustainability

Graduation year: 2025

Focus areas: reading performance of elementary-aged students that come from either or immigrant backgrounds; college-prep for low-income/under-resourced middle school students; social/academic adjustment of arabic-speaking immigrants; food insecurity for low-income families in Houston; exposure to art/music programs and events for low-resourced students

Email: rea4@rice.edu

Arinze Appio-Riley

Major: Health Sciences

Minors: Global Health Technologies

Graduation year: 2024

Focus areas: Houston Black Trans Capacity and Community Building

Email: pga3@rice.edu

Ithzel Rubio

Major: Sociology

Minors: Women's gender and sexuality studies, Policey Law and Social Thought.

Graduation year: 2025

Focus areas: Immigration Advocacy, Legal Resource Accessibility, and Queer Advocacy