When Eileen Lee transferred to UCI from Fullerton College, she wasted no time in getting involved in campus life. The sociology and psychology and social behavior double major quickly became a university studies discussion leader, project director for Main Street UCI, and a participant in the Social Sciences Academic Resource Center Community Service and Leadership and Speak Out programs. She completed the Summer Academic Enrichment Program where she discovered her passion for research. She’s since received two grants from the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program and one from the Summer Undergraduate Research Program which helped fund her honors thesis on the role of caffeine as a potential gateway drug, adolescents’ perception of risks involved in drug use, and adolescents’ lifestyles and how they impact their perception of the risk involved in drug use. When she adds in time she spent taking five courses a quarter and her four hour roundtrip daily commute to campus, she estimates she got about four hours of sleep a night while an undergrad at UCI.

Lee is this year’s recipient of the Outstanding Transfer Student Scholarship, an honor which carries a $300 prize. Lee is graduating in June with the Chancellor’s Award of Distinction and the Order of Merit. In the fall, she’ll start her master’s in demographic and social analysis at UCI and then plans to take two years off to pursue research in public health and national security.