Aliza Lopez — Fall 2021 Award Recipient
Aliza Lopez is a high school junior at North Brunswick Township High School in New Jersey. She’s the co-founder and co-CEO at Medicine Encompassed, a student-run 501(c)(3) that aims to promote awareness and increase accessibility in the medical field, particularly with underrepresented students. Read her write up below!
Deeply rooted from a young age, the medical environment encompassed everything that I found fascinating in STEAM — a natural affinity for numerous scientific fields, whether abstract or in bodily form. Fast forward, where my career and scientific pursuits are even more defined today: my medical passion was incrementally paved into its full-fledged form — from the mere thought to developing what I’ve coined as the product of knowledge and creative abilities. Perhaps I was a student social entrepreneur now, and an (aspiring!) pediatric neurosurgeon later, still with a love for the field regardless of what I served in.
Strides later, I co-founded Medicine Encompassed, a 501(c)(3) organization whose main objective is to promote awareness and increase accessibility for prospective STEAM / medical professionals through various mediums — regardless of background. With our nonprofit and platform expanding globally, our reach of hundreds of thousands of like-minded students — who reciprocated the same interests, inquisitive minds, and aspirations — creates a secure sphere for everyone to network.
As a result, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) values have been strongly prioritized in our workspaces; we’ve recognized that a diverse arrangement of skills in our recruits, as well as our populations and areas impacted, are important in our advancing workforce.
In a community of 1,500+ students upward and 1,000,000+ overall / global impressions, this pipeline depended on an appeal to students internationally, passions, and concrete visions. In the periods that we’ve gradually pushed our efforts off the ground, Medicine Encompassed evolved from five medical committees (of which each committee creates resources and curricula relating to its respective field) to having 30+ initiatives in peer and professional assistance (detailed below).
Suggested by our organization’s name, we try to utilize as many characteristics that medicine encompasses, whether it be through our members’ skills or our initiatives and services itself. With our reach in 40+ countries and 45+ states, we’ve established Medicine Encompassed’s STEAM-based curricula for our 18+ medical committees (covering content from neurology, cardiology, pediatrics, pathology, etc.), an international mentorship program as a collaboration with the Harvard Pre-Medical Society (spanning 4+ continents, with mentors attending nationally prestigious institutions — e.g. Yale, UMD, Tufts), published over 200 resources on our website and accessible publication, donated hundreds of dollars to fund patients’ surgeries in Asia with one of our partners (Sparkling Hearts Foundation), launched The Astrocyte Initiative for mental health advocacy (including 4 current units of resource and toolkit production, a literary production discussing relevant concepts in the student perspective, and science communication efforts), and more among our other endeavors and prospective plans.
Out of our services, Project Cultivation — our global presentation initiative — is one of our most notable, impactful projects that we’ve executed. With a new theme in STEAM, medicine, and general well-being each month, we tie these topics to each of our medical committees’ respective fields and systems; we aim to demonstrate the relevance of matters in everyday scales. Past events have reviewed topics in medical subspecialties and careers, mental health and its association in physical wellness, effects of quarantine habits on health, etc. In arranging each committee’s contribution for presentations, Project Cultivation plays instrumental roles in having all hands-on-deck; its success relied on the productivity of our Committee Leaders, board directors, and our action items. We’ve presented to schools in New York, Mexico, the Philippines, etc. (200+ students directly across 2+ continents — e.g. The Wingate School, Thomas A. Edison Career & Technical Education High School, Jamaica Gateway to the Sciences, Brent International School, Philippine Science High School), having extensive speaking engagements for large student audiences to further immerse themselves in the wide applications of the health sciences. It’s the ultimate peak of interdisciplinary education, showing all angles of medicine’s nature.
As a result of Medicine Encompassed, I’ve received the Gold Presidential Volunteer Service Award, was named a national Point of Light Honoree, and am designated a 2021 T-Mobile Changemaker Challenge Grand Prize Winner.
