Graduates to Receive Special Recognition at CSUN’s Honors Convocation

Of the approximately 3,500 graduates invited to take part in California State University, Northridge’s Honors Convocation on Saturday, May 11, six individuals were be singled out for special recognition as outstanding graduating students. This week we will feature the remaining three students. 

Outstanding Graduating Senior — Seth Almaraz

As a first-generation student, Almaraz plans continue his studies in psychology and eventually earn a doctorate, with the goal of one day becoming a CSU faculty member conducting research and mentoring students from culturally diverse and historically underrepresented groups. Having discovered a passion for statistics during his time at CSUN, Almaraz plans to pursue clinical research – aimed at helping marginalized ethnic and racial communities – in the university master’s graduate program.

While an undergraduate, Almaraz was selected as a BUILD PODER scholar, a training program funded by the National Institutes of Health designed to increase underrepresented students in scientific research. He was awarded the CSUN Presidential Scholarship, established to provide opportunities for intensive research with a faculty member and $10,000 in grant funding for the project. Almaraz has spent more than a year volunteering for a community crisis center near the campus called Strength United, which provides resources to those seeking help who have experienced sexual assault. Almaraz has worked as a teaching assistant in graduate psychology courses, and in two labs, psychology professor Scott Plunkett’s “Adolescent and Adult Adjustment” research lab and psychology professor Jill Razani’s “Neuropsychology Dementia and Multicultural Research” lab, conducting bilingual research.

Almaraz attributes his multiethnic and blended family — which included members from Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador and the Philippines — to the “strong sense of cultural humility” that ground his goals and future work within academia and within his community.

Outstanding Graduating Senior — Jessica Smith

With a degree in English with an emphasis on creative writing, Smith hopes to become a professor of creative writing and adding to the number of Black faces present in higher education. Smith’s work, inspired by authors like Toni Morrison and Nnedi Okorafor, centers around the feminine subject and meaningful experience of being Black.

Smith’s work in genres such as surrealism and Afro futurism has been published in The Northridge Review, The Sundial, and Kapu Sens: Africana Studies Literary Journal and three of CSUN’s printed magazines. Smith has conducted research on literature and Africana studies and has soon to be published, with Kim Young, as part of the Los Angeles Public Poetry and Prose Project. Smith revived the on campus group the Northridge Creative Writing Circle (NCWC) and is graduating as the NCWC Vice President after holding multiple significant leadership roles. In addition, Smith received the 2023-2024 Priscilla Moyer Scholarship and has been an active member of the Trans Wellness Alliance, the Black Student Union, CSUN’s Sigma Tau Delta English Honors Society and Students for Justice in Palestine. Smith has also worked as a Los Angeles Valley College outreach representative, mentoring and aiding students at Panorama High School in applying for higher education.

Striving to spread the message that “every story matters,” not only does Smith want to express creativity as a writer, but also aims to break barriers, disprove existing stereotypes and give back to university-level writing students who seek meaningful experiences in education.

Outstanding Graduating Senior — Sadie Eldredge

As a transfer student, Eldredge hopes to use her Bachelor of Science in Radiologic Sciences (BSRS) to become a pediatric MRI technologist, a dream she has had since she was young.

At CSUN, Eldredge served as a cabinet member for the Radiologic Sciences Student Association, organizing events and dedicating herself to community service opportunities. Among these events were a food drive via Valley Food Bank; holiday card writing via Operation Gratitude; a holiday event for elementary school children in the San Fernando Valley under the Title 1 No Child Left Behind Act; blankets given for foster children; and a donation drive via the My Stuff Bags Foundation in which everyone in the Department of Health Sciences were invited to participate. Dedicating herself to the CSUN and surrounding community, Eldredge has volunteered time at high schools to discuss the importance of radiologic sciences and offered guidance regarding acceptance into the program. Additionally, Eldredge has committed time and energy toward aiding the radiological sciences department in planning events and serves as the BSRS Alumni Association Student Liaison.

Serving as valedictorian after obtaining two associate degrees before her time at CSUN, Eldredge is “humbled by the challenges that allowed” her to achieve current goals and looks forward to her career as a radiologic technologist.