Batool Abdulruhman and Alyssa Rivera both grew up in rural Valley communities where doctors are scarce and medical care is difficult to access. Now they are on a path to become doctors practicing in the Valley because of the support and mentorship they received through the Center for Access to Science for All (CASA) in the College of Science and Mathematics at Fresno State.
Abdulruhman is a current Fresno State student in her third year pursuing a biology degree. Rivera is a Fresno State alumna, class of 2021, who is currently enrolled as a medical student at UC San Francisco. While they are at different stages in their education, they share a common motivation for pursuing careers in medicine.
“I didn’t want to be in the health care field originally, but in high school it clicked for me when a teacher was talking about the need for doctors and specialists in the Valley,” Rivera said. “I thought about when my mother needed treatment and we had to drive to Davis. It was a two-day event at the minimum, where you had to go to a different city and figure out where to stay to see one doctor. And that inspired me to become a pre-med major.”
“I want to be a doctor because of the community I grew up in,” Abdulruhman said. “Growing up in a low-income immigrant household and having barriers to health care, not being able to access it easily, and seeing that this is a very common trend within my community has inspired me to want to become a physician.”
Abdulruhman and Rivera are the first generation in their immigrant families to pursue careers in medicine. Both say their paths have been made easier because CASA has provided them with information about opportunities, advice on applying to medical school, and mentorship from Fresno State alumni working in the medical field.
“It’s like having an older sibling,” Rivera said. “It provides a community of peers, faculty, and staff where you can ask questions and talk to people who have gone through the same things. It’s been super helpful in demystifying how to become a doctor, which is a hard thing to do when you don’t have anyone who has modeled that in your family. They did a great job in showing me this is the test you have to take, this is how you prep for it, this is how you stand out in your application.”
Connecting students to opportunities beyond the classroom
CASA, which currently serves over 1,700 students, provides a variety of services that connect science students with opportunities outside the classroom. The center serves as an entry point for students to join support programs for STEM careers and research programs, such as the Health Careers Opportunity Program (HCOP), the Health Professions Pathways Program (HPPP), the CSU STEM Pathways and Research Alliance (CSU-SPaRA, formerly known as CSU-LSAMP), and the Bulldogs Involved in Tobacco Endgame Research (BITER). The center offers students weekly and quarterly newsletters announcing new opportunities. CASA connects students to research projects, research stipends, scholarships, travel to scientific conferences, and networking and social events. Perhaps most important, the CASA office is a central place where students can drop in for advice, support, and community.
“CASA serves as a major resource for students in the college, providing connections to valuable opportunities and resources, as well as a great community,” said Dr. Christopher Meyer, dean of the College of Science and Mathematics. “Under the outstanding leadership of director Lilia De La Cerda, CASA is moving the needle for student success with numerous and varied positive impacts on our students.”
Equal access to multiple opportunities
CASA, in its current name and format, has only existed for the last three years. The center was formed to provide students with a one-stop shop of support and to create a common administrative framework to support existing, new, and future grant-funded programs.
“A few years ago we were several different programs, and I thought we really needed to be an umbrella that can be home to all of them,” said CASA director Lilia De La Cerda. “Grant-funded programs come and go, but CASA provides a framework so that grant programs can be housed under the center and be available to students. It’s very important to provide continuity because when grants are written, there are always questions of where will the program be housed and how will logistics be handled. But if you have a center that’s already supported by the university, it’s easier to bring a new program on board when you have that infrastructure in place.”
CASA plays a crucial role in giving students research experiences, practical career advice, and professional connections that can’t be provided in the classroom. These services are critically important to connecting first-generation students to opportunities, and CASA programs have established a track record of building opportunities for Fresno State students.
“The majority of students on this campus are low-income, first-generation, or have overcome some kind of barrier,” De La Cerda said. “We had the opportunity to imagine what it would look like to provide support for all students so that any student interested in a STEM profession could benefit. Since 2018, the programs now housed under CASA have graduated a little over 2,100 students, and of those, we’ve had 234 students who have gone on to another degree, and the majority have completed a doctorate or master’s program.”
Serving all students
CASA serves all Fresno State students interested in any STEM-related profession, including students who are not within the College of Science and Mathematics. Zoie Gavel is a nutrition major in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, part of the Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology. Through CASA’s CSU-SPaRA program, Gavel has found opportunities to join research projects, receive research stipends, and travel to science conferences.
“Most students majoring in nutrition want to be dietitians, which is a very clinical field,” Gavel said. “I want to get a Ph.D. in nutrition science, which requires a lot of extra biology and chemistry. My family doesn’t have a strong background in STEM, so all my help for my career has come through the university, especially through CASA.”
Like many students affiliated with CASA, Gavel has particularly prized the opportunity to have informal mentorship conversations with De La Cerda, which ultimately connected Gavel with a graduate school and a new mentor.
“Lilia will help you with whatever you need. If you’re applying to graduate school, she will look at your essays or resume to help you revise them,” Gavel said. “I was applying to Ph.D. programs last semester, and she mentioned the dean has a friend in Davis who studies the gut microbiome, which is similar to what I want to research. Lilia said she’d connect me. I met the professor several times, discussed research, and now he’s going to be my mentor for the Ph.D. program at UC Davis.”
Providing pathways to underrepresented students
Abdulruhman, Rivera, and Gavel said that CASA’s most important function is helping students from diverse and underserved backgrounds see that career success is possible.
“CASA showed me that it was possible to become a physician and follow in the footsteps of other Fresno State students who have become doctors,” Abdulruhman said. “It was nice to ask alumni what they did at Fresno State, how they selected their specialty, how they navigated the finances of attending medical school. It showed that it was possible to get where they are.”
“CASA is open to everyone, but it especially benefits people from underrepresented backgrounds to know that they’re not alone,” Gavel said. “Connecting with people of similar backgrounds with similar experiences is important for maintaining your drive, and it gives you the responsibility to pass on the torch of mentorship. It’s really empowering on an emotional level to know that I can do this. We can do this.”
