05/12/2020
for this week is Alex Umanzor from our Fall 2016 pledge class! Alex graduated in Winter 2020 with a B.S. in Chemistry! At UCLA, he was as a joint undergraduate researcher in the labs of Prof. Alexander Spokoyny and Prof. Ken Houk, resulting in his first publication. He has also worked as a teaching assistant for lower division organic chemistry classes. Alex says, “[In] my freshman year at UCLA, I found the STEM classes to be cutthroat and didn’t have many friends in the major. This, combined with the lack of fellow Latinx and/or LGBTQ+ students in my classes, made it difficult for me to feel like I belonged. When I pledged AXS at the beginning of my sophomore year, I immediately gained a wonderfully diverse group of friends, classmates, and mentors. This new support system helped me to navigate academia like nobody else had before, giving me the tools to not only turn my grades around, but also to gain access to some life changing undergraduate research experiences. Over 3 years after joining AXS, I love that I’m now able to pay it forward and provide similar guidance to our younger brothers. For me, AXS has been a group of people I look forward to seeing every day in our lounge— friends to study with, cry with, and celebrate each other’s accomplishments with. This is my favorite thing about AXS—we all have such unique interests and career goals, but we’re all committed to helping each other succeed.” Alex has served as Beta Gamma’s rush chair and Seaborg banquet chair. If he isn’t in the lounge or in lab, he can be found at outdoor malls, discovering new bars & restaurants, or studying at a cafe. Outside of chemistry, he loves learning languages, watching novelas/kdramas, and playing the violin. Alex will be attending the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities for his PhD in Organic/Organometallic Chemistry, focusing on the development of new earth-abundant transition metal-catalyzed methodologies for pharmaceutical and energy applications. He would like to thank his boyfriend, Joseph, for his unconditional love and support for the past 3 years. 👑
Congratulations Alex! We’re so excited for your future at UMN! 🎓 @ University Of Minnesota - Twin Cities
