The Anne Ford and Allegra Ford Scholarship is a $10,000 award granted to college-bound high school seniors with a documented learning disability (LD). Anne Ford and Allegra Ford Scholars are students who have faced the challenges of LD with perseverance, self-advocacy, and a commitment to achieving their future dreams. We are pleased to present this update on one of our recent scholars.

I am currently a junior at Hampshire College.  This year I've been focusing on becoming a strong student of science. I'm taking difficult classes and reading primary literature.

My experiences over the summer and last semester have given me a more refined way to talk about my life goals. I want to help people live happier, healthier, and safer lives. I've decided that the best way to do that is directly. I have changed course this semester and have started pre-medical studies.

I took a course in Emergency Medicine and will soon be certified as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in the state of Massachusetts. I'm working with Hampshire’s EMS squad as a first responder, “running” with EMTs. I’ve been busy studying physiology, epidemiology, statistics, and linguistic field methods.

This summer, I have been working at The Zovein Lab in the Cardiovascular Research Institute at University of California, San Francisco. We're using a mouse model of pre-eclampsia to learn more about the disease and placental angiogenesis (the growth of new blood vessels).

In my remaining two years at Hampshire, I plan to look for ways technology can be used to improve global health outcomes. This includes new, inexpensive lab techniques that could be used to assess rural patients more quickly; and medical informatics, computer software that makes it easier to track an individual patient and study an entire population.

Zeke was a 2009 Anne Ford and Allegra Ford Scholar.  Read his winning essay, “Committing to Change”