Oxy Stories | Occidental College

From academics to real-world impact, explore stories from our community that highlight the people and experiences making Occidental College a place of opportunity, discovery, and success.

Student Ruby Ferehawk

Student Mathematics Urban & Environmental Policy

Ruby Ferehawk came to Occidental as a transfer student and loves the close-knit community of students and professors she’s discovered here. Now she’s exploring career options through the InternLA program.

Professor Ross Lerner

Faculty English

Meet Ross Lerner of English, who teaches courses on 14th- through 17th-century British literature, poetry and poetics, and the history of race and punishment.

Student Máté Major

Student Comparative Studies in Literature & Culture

Máté Major came to Oxy from Hungary, succumbing to the siren call of the Comparative Studies in Literature & Culture department. Diving in deep through the Summer Research Program, he hasn’t looked back.

Student Kevin Conroy

Student History Asian Studies

Kevin Conroy, a history and East Asian studies major, has leveraged various funding opportunities at Oxy to research his Chinese family history and conduct oral histories about the era of the Cultural Revolution.

Student Elena Daniel

Student Kinesiology Public Health Biology

Elena Daniel, a premed student, is inspired by the connections between public health and kinesiology. This is reflected by her urban internships and ongoing faculty-mentored research projects at Oxy.

Kate Grossman '20

Student Mathematics

Kate Grossmann studied abroad in Hungary through the uniquely rigorous Budapest Semester in Mathematics program, which introduced her to a new culture and showed her what it means to seriously pursue math.

Alumna Marissa Chan '17

Marissa Chan ’17

Alumni Urban & Environmental Policy Public Health

Marissa Chan has aspired to be an environmental epidemiologist since she was 17. Committed to fighting environmental injustices that disproportionately affect some communities, she’s on her way to Harvard for graduate training.

Alumnus Morgan Bennett Smith sea diving

Morgan Bennett-Smith ’17

Alumni Marine Biology

Morgan Bennett-Smith is currently a master’s student at the Red Sea Research Center, and his studies of coral reef ecology and how reef organisms adapt have taken him (and his camera) all over the world.

Lynn He '19

Student Chemistry Art & Art History

Coming to Oxy with plans to pursue chemical engineering, the liberal arts took Lynn He in unexpected directions. Her classes and professors helped her discover new passions and blend them with existing ones, forging a path she says better reflects who she is.

Professor Margi Rusmore

Faculty Geology

Structural geologist Margi Rusmore was recently named the inaugural Gibby Professor of Science at Occidental. She blends a passion for teaching and research with a love for the outdoors and an abiding curiosity about how our planet works.

Alumna Lande Ajose

Lande Ajose ’87

Alumni Diplomacy & World Affairs

Armed with a briefcase full of challenges facing the nation’s largest higher education system, Lande Ajose brings new energy to Sacramento.

Jacques Lesure '19

Student Education

Designing his own interdisciplinary major, Resistive Education in Theory, Research and Policy, Jacques Lesure is passionate about ensuring positive life outcomes for youth through equitable education systems.