Baker-Polito Administration Honors “29 Who Shine”

Why Alex Shines: As vice president of the Latinx Empowerment Association (LEA Club), Alex spearheaded a project to create a “Little Free Library” in the Holyoke Flats, one of the poorest sections of the city, to provide books focused on culture and ethnicity to children isolated during the pandemic. The first student at HCC to graduate from the college's Latinx Studies program, Alex helped organize a social media campaign celebrating the Latinx community and developed student-led virtual panel discussions with HCC’s Black Student Alliance and Holyoke’s Wistariahurst Museum during the pandemic.

Why Georgina Shines: While juggling classes and motherhood, Georgiana worked fulltime for a non-profit, helping connect people with mental health resources. She also volunteered with a non-profit delivering gift cards to people impacted by food insecurity due to COVID-19.

Why Shelby Shines: A committed campus leader addressing student food insecurity, Shelby worked collaboratively with MCLA’s Office of Civic and Community Engagement staff and fellow students to maintain student access to MCLA’s food pantry during COVID-19 pandemic. Part of this effort included the development of an online-pickup service that allowed students to have continued access to food, with orders organized and filled by student volunteers. Shelby also led the initiative to continue helping students who had returned to their hometowns when the campus closed early due to the pandemic, having volunteers research and find resources across the Commonwealth and the Northeast, and relay that information to students in need.

Why Neal Shines: A Navy submarine veteran of 9 years, Neal assisted in implementing a COVID-19 quarantine process for sailors deploying to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. In addition to be being a member of of the student veteran organization, Neal also volunteered as an accounting tutor on campus during pandemic-related shutdown, and participated in a federal work study program at the Lowell Vet Center that helped Massachusetts vets obtain individual and group therapy for combat-related PTSD and military sexual trauma.

Why Parker Shines: While serving in the Academic Public Health Volunteer Corps, Parker worked as case investigator for the state’s Contact Tracing Collaborative (CTC) run by Partners in Health, and used the skills he learned there to write interview scripts and coded fields compatible with the Massachusetts Virtual Epidemiological Network. He also recruited, onboarded, and trained over 50 undergraduate contact tracers and graduate team leads through surges and complicated cases. Parker interned at the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts and was also the student ambassador for the Commonwealth Honors College.

Why Apurv Shines: Early on in the pandemic, Apurv was recruited to join a task force that was defining criteria for hospitalizing patients with COVID-19. He developed an algorithm to identify eligible patients to receive care in the local COVID-19 field hospital, and coordinated a team of 50 fellow medical students to lead a crowd-sourced effort of data curation that informed the predictive algorithm. He also worked with a team of physicians, case managers, and technology analysts to develop and deploy the algorithm within the electronic medical record over the course of three weeks. The algorithm continues to be used by healthcare providers in making triage decisions.