Megan Benjamin, College of Arts and Sciences
Benjamin, a history major from Saratoga, Calif., came to Cornell as a transfer student, where she balanced her academics with equestrian vaulting, traveling around the world to teach vaulting clinics and training for the 2010 World Equestrian Games.

Ilya Brotzky, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
An applied economics and management major from Vancouver, Brotzky credits swimming with keeping him focused. He organized a Fistula Free Climb, which summited Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for obstetric fistula in East Africa.

Maurice Chammah, College of Arts and Sciences
As a College Scholar, Chammah leveraged his studies in anthropology and government to travel to Cairo as a junior and later to Jerusalem to work for a human rights NGO.

Matthew Conlon, College of Engineering
Realizing his enjoyment of teaching through Cornell Outdoor Education, Conlon continued to develop his teaching skills by working as a teaching assistant and volunteered at Cayuga Medical Center and the Cornell Public Service Center.

Andrew Daines, College of Arts and Sciences
Daines, a philosophy major, served as a teaching assistant for the American Legal Systems course in the Auburn Prison through Cornell's Service Learning Program, where he worked to pass along his appreciation for the classics.

Andrew Delapenha, College of Human Ecology
Even though he is from the Washington, D.C., area, Delapenha had never been to the White House, sat in on a Supreme Court session or seen a performance at the Kennedy Center until his Cornell in Washington semester.

Erin Fischell, College of Engineering
A mechanical and aerospace engineering major, Fischell led the Cornell University Autonomous Underwater Vehicle team to design and build a robotic submarine for an international AUV competition.

David Hartino, College of Engineering
Pursuing college later in life, Hartino is a transfer student from Monroe Community College who worked in an educational outreach division of NASA that provides programs to underserved schools and disadvantaged students.

Kathy Houng, College of Human Ecology
A resident adviser in Donlon Hall, Houng worked as a manager at the student phoning program of the Cornell Annual Fund and as a Cornell chimesmaster, which required a 10-week audition.

Bianca Lane, College of Engineering
Lane, a biological engineering major, spent her four years at Cornell as a cadet in the Army ROTC program, which helped her build confidence and leadership skills that she hopes to use in graduate school in biomedical engineering and later in medical school.

Whitney Larsen, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Larsen organized a delegation of more than 90 Cornellians to PowerShift09, a youth conference on climate change in Washington, D.C., in spring 2009 that attracted more than 12,000 students from across the country.

Froilan Malit, ILR School
A first-generation immigrant, Malit founded Global Youth Concept, a student organization that seeks to address the most pressing problems in the rural regions of the Philippines: malnutrition and educational gaps.

Melanie Redeye, College of Arts and Sciences
Having lived on the Tonawanda reserveration in western New York for 15 years, Redeye helped organize a Powwow and Smokedance competition each year at Cornell and does research on preserving the Seneca language.

Jane Rhyu, College of Arts and Sciences
As founder of the Cornell chapter of Global Medical Brigades, Rhyu traveled to Honduras with 15 other students and two doctors as a mobile medical unit that treated more than 500 patients in rural areas.

Mony Sarkar, College of Human Ecology
A human development major with a minor in education, Sarkar has been a REACH team leader and board member since sophomore year. The organization mobilizes Cornellians to mentor children in the community.

Diego M. Sosa, School of Hotel Administration
With few resources to work with, Sosa pursued gifts from Hotel School alumni and Cornell grants to embark on an education that has allowed him to pursue his dreams as a hotelie and garnered him internships around the world.

Samantha Stout, College of Engineering
Stout helped draft a new constitution for Cornell Minds Matter, which promotes mental health awareness, and coordinated the distribution of "Recognizing and Responding to Students in Distress: A Faculty Handbook" to more than 1,200 faculty members.

Julio F. Torres Santana, College of Architecture, Art and Planning
Torres Santana joined the National Organization for Minority Architect Students, where he won a national design competition and was able to participate in the National Black Student Leadership Conference twice.

Kristina T. Weems, College of Arts and Sciences
As president of Wanawake wa Wari, a cooperative house for black women established in 1968, Weems volunteered at the Lansing Residential Center, where she mentored young incarcerated females.

Mark Yatskar, College of Engineering
A dancer, choreographer and co-founder of a business called Coursetopia.com, Yatskar is interested in researching natural language processing as a computer scientist.