A second-generation Occidental student, Andrew Pace ‘05 hopes to follow in the footsteps of his father, an emergency room physician. But he plans on taking a slightly different route.  “I want to go to divinity school,” says Andrew, a native of Steilacoom, Wash. “As a Christian I’d like to not only deepen my own faith, but also look at the ethics and morals of medical issues such as cloning and stem cell research.”

Andrew, who is now enrolled at the University of Washington School of Medicine, has already taken a first step toward combining the study of ethics and medicine. “I told one of the Oxy politics professors I was interested in doing an internship. He put me in touch with Allen Mathies, who had been an Oxy trustee and dean of USC Medical School. That connection led to an internship with a doctor at USC who is examining the link between faith and surgical recovery.”

A recipient of the prestigious Beckman Scholars Award, Andrew conducted research at Occidental since the second semester of his freshman year. He used the award to work with Donald Deardorff, the Carl F. Braun Professor of Chemistry. His research project, “Drugs, Mirrors and You: A New Wave in Pharmaceuticals,” focused on the synthesis of pharmaceutically important molecules, which could be used to improve upon current antibiotics and antidepressants.

“All the opportunities I’ve had have been a consequence of being at Occidental,” says Andrew, who also won a Goldwater Fellowship. “The professors here are very accessible; I can talk to them about opportunities in research and ask for advice or recommendations. I don’t think I would have had those same opportunities at a larger school."