From May 14 to May 27, 2017, Gwen Ottinger was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Risk Society and Policy Research Center (RSPRC) at National Taiwan University in Taipei. Her visit included academic talks at National Kaohsiung Marine University, National Chengchi University and National Yang-Ming University, as well as a presentation at RSPRC's "I Breathe, I Decide" forum on air pollution.

Zee Hakimoglu’s first laboratory was a rock under a makeshift fort that she and her sisters built alongside a small creek at her family’s home in New Jersey. Hakimoglu, then 11 or 12 years old, spent her days and evenings at the water’s edge, studying the spiders and wondering about the constellations. After graduating with her bachelor’s degree in physics from California State College, Sonoma, and her master’s in physics from Drexel, Hakimoglu accepted an associate engineering position at aerospace and defense giant Lockheed Martin, in their Silicon Valley office.

“My life was forever changed by a man whose leg had been amputated,” says Elizabeth Lombardo, PhD, a clinical psychologist and national media consultant, recalling a former patient at the Baltimore Veterans Association Medical Center. At the time of their meeting, Lombardo had just graduated from Duke University with her master’s in physical therapy. “I knew if I could get him up on the parallel bars, he’d be able to walk,” she says, “and I could teach him how to transfer in and out of his wheelchair.” She considers that day a sign of her true purpose in life. Soon after, she applied to doctoral programs in clinical psychology and chose Drexel’s program (formerly part of Hahnemann University) because of its location and because of Arthur Nezu, PhD, one of the program’s directors, with whom she interviewed.