Even as a child growing up on the Pacific coast, David Harvey wanted to be a volcanologist.

Benny Acquah remembers the trouble people sometimes had obtaining clean water in her home city of Koforidua, Ghana. So she decided she would study environmental engineering at UAF and someday help solve such problems.

A teacher from Buffalo, New York, helped Kevin Grimes find direction, just by reaching out at a tough moment.

Daniel Dykes first got interested in neuroscience as he watched doctors on the fictional TV program “House.” Now he’s studying the topic at UAF and plans to eventually earn both a doctorate and a medical degree.

Isabel Castro sat in her car in Kodiak two years ago, interviewing over her cell phone for a job with the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

“My phone was about to die, and I have to take my brother to the pool, and I’m stressed,” she remembered.