Novelty was a big part of the draw when Gauree Gupta started volunteering as a UCLA freshman for the campus chapter of Best Buddies, an international nonprofit group that fosters one-to-one friendships between able-bodied college students and disabled high school students.
“I’d never interacted closely with a disabled person, and I thought I might get something out of learning how to work with this group,� Gupta recently recalled.
Then a tragic coincidence struck her family. As the honor student who graduates June 14 with a B.S. in microbiology became more active with the disabled community in Southern California and in India, both her parents were diagnosed with disabling illnesses. Gupta credits the experience with inspiring her distinguished career at UCLA.
“Whenever a lab experiment went wrong, I’d tell myself, ‘Try again — this is very important,’� Gupta said. “Having sick family members and being around people with disabilities helped me persist and develop a never-give-up attitude.�
With a 3.9 GPA and a dazzling list of accomplishments in academics, research and community service, Gupta is the first UCLA undergraduate in 15 years to win both of the top honors that the university confers at graduation.
The Orange, Calif., resident is the only undergraduate this year to receive the Charles E. Young Humanitarian Award, the highest honor given by the university for community service.
The student in UCLA’s College of Letters and Science was also one of three graduating seniors selected to receive the university’s Outstanding Senior Award, presented by the UCLA Alumni Association in recognition of both academic excellence and community service.
The last time a student pulled off such a feat was in 1987, when UCLA initiated the Young Humanitarian Award. That means the oldest of three children born to Indian immigrants is only the second person in UCLA’s history to be so honored.
“Since UCLA doesn’t select valedictorians and salutatorians at graduation, these awards are as good as it gets, and they’re extraordinary honors,� said Audrey Cramer, director of UCLA’s Undergraduate Research Center for the Life and Physical Sciences. “To receive both is amazing.�
Gupta’s persistence netted seven additional academic awards, four research awards and membership in five scholastic honor societies. Gupta also contributed to two professional-level journal articles and published an article for an undergraduate research journal.
“I can’t think of any academic honor she would have been eligible for that she didn’t win,� Cramer said. “She’s a very memorable student.�
In addition to excelling in the classroom and lab, Gupta immersed herself in community service. Starting as an activities director with UCLA’s Best Buddies, Gupta eventually went on to head the group. Under her direction, the group extended its reach from disabled high school students to disabled adults, and it launched joint ventures with the Shriner’s Hospital and Special Olympics.
She also served as a Special Olympics coach, volunteered at a summer camp for children with cancer and pitched in at hospitals and low-income medical clinics. She even interrupted her junior year to volunteer in India with the Missionaries of Charity order founded by Mother Teresa. There she took a special interest in the plight of handicapped and malnourished orphans.
“She’s always been an extraordinarily good kid, but in India she really felt the need of the people,� recalled Gupta’s mother, Saroj Gupta.
Despite all her activities, Gauree Gupta managed to keep close tabs on her mother, a former Boeing engineer who has been housebound for the past two years with a rare and debilitating form of cancer, and her father Viney Gupta, a legal aid immigration lawyer who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
In fact, Gupta insists that skills she picked up while teaching a Santa Monica high school student with Down syndrome to read or taking a Culver City man with cerebral palsy on his first trip out of Southern California helped her become a better caregiver for her parents.
“I’m the type to do a bunch of things at once,� Gupta said. “But in Best Buddies, I learned to slow down. I’m so aware now of my parents’ need to take things slowly.�
Her parents’ illnesses may have taught Gupta to pace herself at home, but they had the opposite effect on her work as an assistant in the lab of Jean S. de Vellis, a professor of neurobiology and director of UCLA’s Mental Retardation Research Center.
There Gupta’s experience with people who have disabilities supplied an extra urgency to her involvement with cutting-edge brain cell research, with implications for understanding — and possibly preventing — such neurodegenerative illnesses as multiple sclerosis.
“Instead of getting depressed or feeling helpless, the situation with her parents just reinforces her will to keep striving,� said de Vellis, who served as Gupta’s thesis advisor. “It’s remarkable.�
As her senior year concludes, Gupta has been accepted to nine medical schools. In the fall, she plans to attend University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine. In the meantime, she will travel to Ecuador to scuba dive and participate in a summer program that rotates aspiring health-care workers through underfunded hospitals.
“I see a lot of ambitious people who want to go to medical school, and I worry that they don’t get the bigger picture,� de Vellis said. “But Gauree is interested in the human face on what she does. She’s genuine.�