Education Makes You Fearless

Some meditations on the people and ideas that give us hope.

Bioengineering and chemistry are what Jo Gopinath ’19 studies. She is a student researcher in the Micro/Nanosystems Lab and is fascinated with discovering new frontiers. She also appreciates tradition; a hero who looms large for her is her grandmother, “a Malaysian-born Singaporean-Indian woman of a whopping five feet,” as Jo described her in a piece she wrote for USA Today. Why? One reason: She was raised to be environmentally conscious and live sustainably.

Jo founded her own eco fashion line, GreenWithEnvy Fashion, designing new clothes from remnants of old. Last year, SCU’s Global Fellows program enabled her to intern with AHA Bolivia, a women’s co-op making recycled handicrafts. She would like to see eco fashion make inroads against throwaway clothes. Daunting, perhaps—but, she says, “Education makes you fearless.”

For Jo, education also opened up opportunities, like a $10,000 Clare Boothe Luce grant to conduct research on disease-causing toxins found in water, air, and soil. If you’ve visited campus, you might have met her; she serves as a tour guide for the School of Engineering.

In March, SCU celebrated our annual Day of Giving. Thousands of you made it another great day to be a Bronco. Thanks to you for supporting students like Jo.

post-image Photography by Charles Barry
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