Release date: Feb. 27, 2003
Contact: Deb Hammacher, Associate Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-727-0644 or dhammac@emory.edu

Students Receive Humanitarian Awards

Five Emory University seniors, Lauren Giles, Melissa Pabalan, Eugine Oh, Jill Pertersen and Alexandra Rodu, and Emory medical student Nishant Shah, were recently named the university's 2002-2003 Humanitarian Award winners, which recognizes undergraduate and graduate students who embody the spirit of volunteerism and sense of community, both on campus and off.

Students are nominated for the Humanitarian Award by peers and faculty members for demonstrating honesty, integrity, responsibility and a sense of community; for special acts of courage and friendship; and for committing an unusual amount of time and energy in service to others. Recipients were presented with a plaque and $100 gift certificate to the Emory bookstore at a recent ceremony on campus.

• Lauren Giles works on behalf of those on Georgia's death row as state coordinator for Amnesty International’s efforts to abolish the death penalty. In this role, she spends many hours lobbying the Georgia Legislature as an advocate against the death penalty. Giles also has been active with Emory’s Alternative Spring Break program. As president of Emory’s chapter, Lauren has helped organize six service trips around the country involving more than 70 participants.

• Eugine Oh, an international student from Seoul, Korea, is founder and president of Korean International Students at Emory (KISEM). Under her leadership, the organization has more than 50 members and has promoted unity among Korean students at Emory. Oh's motivation to form KISEM last fall was a car crash involving three Korean students in September, which resulted in the death of one and serious injury of the others. During this time Oh helped to organize informal peer support sessions, comfort grieving family members that came from Korea, and arranged memorial and funeral services.

• Melissa Pabalan is co-director of Volunteer Emory, the university's largest philanthropic group. In that role, she organizes various service opportunities, working to challenge and motivate fellow students to become involved in community service. In addition to her responsibilities with Volunteer Emory, Pabalan volunteers for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and the Jerusalem House.

• Jill Petersen, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, is part of the Emory Scholars Program after spending her first two years at Emory’s Oxford College. She has volunteered at a local Catholic church with its Ulster Project, a program bringing Catholic and Protestant youth from Northern Ireland to stay with young people of the same religious orientation in Atlanta. After the death of her father her freshman year, Petersen reached out to students dealing with similar losses by founding the Terminal Illness Resource Group at Oxford.

• Alexandra Rodu has been a nationally ranked intercollegiate debater since her first year of college and is an instructor at the Emory National Debate Institute, a two-week residential tournament-training program for students and faculty from across the country. She also is a frequent volunteer with the Urban Debate League in Atlanta, an organization that develops debate programs in inner city junior high and high schools. In particular, Rodu has touched the lives of six inner city middle school students whom she has taught through the Urban Debate League. Under her guidance, these students have attended special debate programs at various universities on scholarship.

• Nishant Shah graduated from Emory College in 1999 and received a Woodruff Fellowship upon admission to Emory University School of Medicine, the school's most sought-after scholarship. Between college and medical school, Shah spent a year in Cambodia as a volunteer at the Angkor Hospital for Children. While enrolled in Emory College, Shah tutored refugee children. Since entering medical school, Shah has helped lead Physicians for Social Responsibility, and has volunteered at the Open Door Community Clinic. He also is the co-founder of Health Students Taking Action Together, which provides opportunities for students around Georgia to get involved in local health care issues.

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