My mom is my hero. She raised six children in a multi-generational household while working full time as an elementary school teacher. Her passion for education and lifelong learning continues to inspire me. My mom is now battling cancer and has used all of her experiences around learning to educate and advocate for her care, while thinking of all of us.

– Mary Ludden, Senior Vice Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor at Northeastern

There are so many women I admire, but one that I have focused some attention on of late is Fannie Lou Hamer. Fannie Lou Hamer is a civil rights and anti-lynching activist. What strikes me about her activism is that her life story was not even a generation away from the nation’s enslavement, sharecropping, and Jim Crow social and economic policies/practices, and yet her activism and commitment suggest she had faith in a better life for Black people in a country that had given her no real reason to believe it would deliver on its promise of democracy for all. To me, that faith in a possibility not yet seen is a profound lesson in leadership.

– Wendi Williams, Professor of Education and Dean of the School of Education at Mills College

It may seem a little backwards to say that my five-year-old daughter is someone that I admire, but she does truly inspire me! These past few years have undoubtedly been challenging for all of us, perhaps most of all for our youth and young adults. But through it all, my daughter manages to be present and appreciate the small joys in life. This is something that I sometimes struggle with as an adult.  Whether it’s going sledding, playing with dolls, or pretending to be a superhero fighting an evil villain, she has taught me to let go and just have FUN!

– Chong Kim-Wong, Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students at Northeastern

Mrs. von Maltitz was my high school science teacher back in South Africa. She taught me that science was fascinating, but she also taught me about keeping going. Her husband was killed by a drunk driver, her infant thrown from the car and forgotten in the grass until that evening when someone went back to search. The baby was alive and unhurt. Amazing for the time, she was a single parent who also taught high school science, even able to conjure ducklings out of her lab coat pocket. I am ever grateful to her.

– Hazel Sive, Dean of the College of Science at Northeastern

I have a huge debt of gratitude to my teacher, the late Kristin Linklater. Not only did she design an impeccable progression of exercises to train the voice of actors (Freeing the Natural Voice) but she also took the American Theater movement by storm in the 1960s. She established herself as a pioneer and a leader in a field filled with men with her fierce intellect, her deep compassion, and her infinite curiosity. She was a force of nature, and I’m so grateful for her teaching and her friendship.

– Antonio Ocampo-Guzman, associate professor and chair of the Department of Theater at Northeastern

My mom. She’s been through a lot, but she always keeps a smile on her face. She loves to help everyone around her. She was a teacher, and she’s teaching again, and it just makes me so happy to see her happy. And I know what a big impact she’s having on the kids that she’s teaching. She’s a substitute in an elementary school in Connecticut.

– Brigid Halliday, first year majoring in behavioral neuroscience

My mom is the first person that comes to mind. She’s the strongest person I know. I have a very strong matriarchal line. I admire her and my grandmother a lot. Without going too far into it, they’ve both dealt with a lot of things over the course of their lives, and I really hope to be like them someday.

– Emma Brown-Carley, fourth year majoring in computer science and business

Definitely my mom, just because she does everything for everyone and just has a constant will to help other people and just take care of everyone. So I’ve always admired that. I’d also say both of my grandmothers, just because they’ve taught me a lot about life and I’ve always had good conversations with them about their history and their experiences. One nana would always tell me about her time working in Washington, D.C., and the politicians she met and the people she worked with. That was always interesting to me. That’s the grandmother on my mom’s side. On my dad’s side, my grandmother raised nine kids and I always thought she was a great woman. Somehow she kept it together and always kept it calm even though she had to put food on the table for so many people.

– Tommy Everson, third year majoring in economics and communications

I have to say my mom. She paid most of my tuition fees and she took care of my life and she supported me, whether in school or in life. I also have to say my classmate. She’s graduating this semester. She has two internships at the same time and she has to handle her classwork. I think she’s really tough. She’s capable of a lot of things. Her name is Valentina Zhou.

– Tom Xiao, second year majoring in communications

My wife, Sharissa Jones, grew up in a desolate county in southwestern Nebraska. She read an article about elite colleges in Time magazine, wrote to several of them for applications, and wound up at Yale, even though her high-school guidance counselor didn’t even know what the SATs were. She worked 40 hours a week in the purchasing department to make ends meet while she pursued a degree in ethics, politics, and economics. After graduation, she took Wall Street by storm and became a partner at a major investment firm before the age of 30. When our daughters encounter challenges today and ask for guidance, I try my best to help but often resort to my go-to response: ‘You want to learn about resilience? Talk to Mom.

– Daniel Medwed, University Distinguished Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at Northeastern

My mom was a first-generation immigrant to the U.S. from Hong Kong, China. She put herself through college. She works really hard every day and still does to help get me through my education, keeping me focused and on track. I just really appreciate everything she does. When I go home she has a nice home-cooked meal for me, and when I call her she’s always happy to talk to me. She’s just a really big part of my life and has influenced me in a lot of ways.

– Jeffrey Moberly Chan, first-year Northeastern student

My aunt. She is a cancer survivor. Watching her go through what she went through showed me that she’s really strong. I was pretty young when this happened. She was always someone I looked up to and admired for how she was able to overcome her struggles.

– Dylan Sacks, second-year student of biology and data science

When I was in my junior year of high school, I was in the hospital for a while for what was at the time believed to be a terminal disease—I was fine, in the end. The experience was hugely instrumental and formative in shaping my career choices and my goals for the future. So I’m doing electrical engineering, but my goal is to work in medical devices. I don’t have one specific person, but some very important women in my life at the time were the nurses and doctors in the hospital. It was a pediatric hospital, and being a younger patient, and especially seeing even younger patients around me all the time, and seeing the care and love those women provided was inspiring. It was very powerful for me to see their positivity. It’s a big part of why I’m going into the health-care field, not as a practitioner but as an engineer.

– Hyder Hasnain, first-year master’s student of electrical engineering

We’ve been dating for just about four months. In that time, I’ve just admired her drive, her intellectual wit. I don’t know, it’s just everything about her that makes me a better person. It’s really fun to be around her. Just walking the streets every day, I’m just thankful to be next to her, cracking jokes and making life a lot easier. She’s been with me through some ups and downs, and she’s helped me through.

– Brendan Cox, fourth-year student of marine biology