UGA's Amazing Students
Daniel del Portal
Senior Daniel del Portal is a Cellular Biology and Psychology major and a Bernard Ramsey Honors Scholar. Last spring, he delivered the student response to Genelle Morain’s Founders’ Day Lecture and won the Sigma Xi award for best poster presentation at the CURO Symposium. This past summer, he traveled to Uganda to perform research and provide medical relief and he plans to attend medical school after he graduates from UGA this semester.
Expected graduation:
December 2004
Degree objective:
B.S. in Cellular Biology and B.S. in Psychology
University highlights, achievements and awards:
Daniel del Portal's achievements at UGA include being named a Courts International Scholar, Bernard Ramsey Honors Scholar, National Merit Scholar, Biomedical & Health Sciences Institute Research Fellow, and CURO Scholar. He won the Sigma Xi "Best in Show" prize at CURO Symposium, and was named a Richard B. Russell Leadership Fellow. He participated in the Security Leadership Practicum at the Center for International Trade and Security, Student Health Advisory Committee, JURO@GA editorial board, and the Academic Scholarship Identification Program. He was also a Founder's Day lecture student respondent, and he is presently a resident of the Spanish Language Community in Mary Lyndon Hall.
Hometown:
New Orleans, Louisiana
High School:
Isidore Newman School
I chose to attend UGA because...
...I wanted to be at a large university that offers students a wide range of opportunities regardless of their field of study. The Honors Program gives a “smaller school” feel and has been compared to an Ivy League education at a major research institution. UGA was the affordable option that offered the best of both worlds. Plus, Athens is the best college town you’ll find anywhere!
My favorite things to do on campus are...
...lie on Herty Field or the North Campus quads and soak in the sun, work out at the unbelievable Ramsey Rec Center, go to jazz night at the Foundry Park Inn downtown, and of course, watch the Dawgs in Sanford Stadium.
When I have free time, I like...
...reading, writing, exercising, listening to saxophone player Stan Getz, and chatting in Spanish with the residents of the Spanish Language Community in Mary Lyndon Hall.
The craziest thing I've done is...
...deliver a baby, who was then named Daniel, in a rural village clinic in sub-Saharan Africa. With the support of the Courts International Scholarship from UGA, I spent a month in southwest Uganda with Dr. Scott and Carol Kellermann, medical missionaries to the Batwa pygmies of the Impenetrable Forest. Aside from the fascinating medical work we did, I also hiked the infamous forest, camped with hippos, and rafted the Nile!
My favorite place to study is...
...Herty Field, because the noise of the fountain is a relaxing soundtrack. When it’s cold or the sun’s not out, the Student Learning Center is the spot. I either sit in the rotunda or I find my own study room, where I can organize my thoughts by scribbling diagrams on the board with a dry-erase marker.
My favorite professor is...
In the sciences, Drs. Marcus Fechheimer and Ruth Furukawa, in whose lab I worked for sixteen months studying the physiology of cellular inclusions found in Alzheimer’s patients. They’ve taught me how to think like a scientist while making me feel like an important part of a research team. In the humanities, Dr. Dezso Benedek is the man. He knows over a dozen languages, and his stories of living as a field anthropologist with a Stone Age tribe are incredible!
If I could share an afternoon with anyone, I would love to share it with...
...Colonel Aureliano Buendia, who “organized thirty-two armed uprisings and lost them all” before facing a firing squad. Well, he’s only a fictional character in the epic classic One Hundred Years of Solitude by Nobel prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but I have never found a more intriguing character!
The one UGA experience I will always remember will be...
...when the Dawgs won the Sugar Bowl in my hometown of New Orleans.