When Mackenzie Maxwell transferred to UC Irvine in her mid-30s, she wasn’t worried about being older than most of her classmates. She saw her life experience as an advantage.

“I knew what I wanted, and I was focused,” she says.

Maxwell points out that young people are often encouraged to dive into college before they’ve had a chance to explore their options—and while that can work for others, it wasn’t the right approach for her.

“It’s much easier to know what you want to do when you know what you don’t want to do,” she says.

That clarity helped sharpen her focus on a bigger goal: making mental health care more accessible, inclusive, and evidence-based.

That sense of purpose, Maxwell says, was instilled early on by her mother, who raised her in Riverside as a single parent.

“She didn’t care how I expressed myself,” she recalls. “And that really helped shape me into a person who wasn’t afraid to go out there and achieve what I wanted to achieve.”

That freedom of expression has taken many forms. Maxwell has trained, shown, and bred dogs. She’s studied Russian as part of her humanities coursework and helped revive the Russian language club on campus. She’s currently president of Tau Sigma, the national honor society for transfer students. But the throughline, always, has been curiosity and a desire to serve.

A broader view of change

This clarity didn’t come overnight. Maxwell’s road to UC Irvine began with a cross-country backpacking trip and years of figuring out what kind of change she wanted to make in the world. Back then, college wasn’t part of the plan.

“It took me coming back from traveling and hearing other people’s life stories, to realize that I couldn’t make the changes I wanted to make doing what I was doing,” she says.

Maxwell had always been passionate about mental health, but she came to see that real change required not just passion, but research, data, and systemic understanding.

“I wanted to make mental healthcare not only affordable, but accessible,” she says. “I wanted to change the way we look at it, change the way we stigmatize it, and change the way we create policies around it.”

After earning associate degrees in psychology and philosophy, Maxwell transferred to UC Irvine to pursue both fields as a double major.

“Philosophy asks what people think, and psychology asks how they think it,” she explains. “To me, they’re two sides of the same coin.”

Maxwell applied to nearly every University of California campus and was accepted to all. But something about Irvine stood out.

“The thing that drove me to UCI was the research,” she says. “The university is so focused on breaking the mold and finding out new things. I wanted to be part of that.”

Immersed in research

Once on campus, Maxwell wasted no time getting involved. As a transfer student, she knew her time was limited and was determined to get as much research experience as she could.

She became a research assistant in two labs: professor Aaron Bornstein’s Cognitive Computational Neuroscience Lab in cognitive sciences and Richard Futrell’s lab in the language science department, where she also designed and led her own Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) project on whether the types of speech errors people make while typing mirror those they make when speaking.

“Mackenzie has consistently demonstrated reliability, proactivity, and excellent communication,” says Sharon Noh, a postdoctoral scholar in Bornstein’s lab. “From the start, she made it clear she was willing to support the lab in whatever way was needed. Over time, she’s become someone I truly depend on—always thinking ahead and following through with care and attention to detail.”

Early on, when the lab was short-staffed and lacked a project manager, Maxwell noticed the gap and took initiative. She volunteered to take on administrative duties to keep research efforts on track—not just for her own projects, but for the benefit of the entire team.

“Her initiative made a real difference—her behind-the-scenes contributions played a key role in restoring the lab’s momentum and continue to benefit the team to this day,” says Noh.

The work has deepened Maxwell’s love of cognitive science and strengthened her sense that this is where she’s meant to be.

“Knowing I have the tools to make real change—and the fear of not living up to that—is what drives me,” she says. “I’ve gained something here that can help others, and that’s what I want to do.”

Prepared to Lead

Maxwell speaks with genuine admiration for the UC Irvine faculty who have supported her.

“I have not had a class where I didn’t feel the professor wanted us to succeed,” she says.

From research mentorship to career guidance, Maxwell believes that faculty and graduate students alike have consistently gone out of their way to help.

“They don’t just do this because it’s their job. They have a passion to see the students do big things,” she says.

That support extends beyond the classroom and has given her confidence as graduation approaches.

“I don’t fear applying to graduate school, because I know I was set up for success,” she says. “I know I have the tools to take the next steps in my career and education, and I owe that to UCI.”

After graduation, Maxwell hopes to take a gap year working in a lab before applying to doctoral programs in cognitive science or neuroscience. Long-term, she envisions a career in mental health policy.

“I’d like to get a Ph.D. and go straight into politics and policymaking to drive real change—especially in how this country approaches mental health research,” she says.

Looking back, she may have taken a different path than most—but she wouldn’t change it.

“The drive to learn all I can so that I can be the best version of myself is really, really motivating,” she says.

—Jill Kato for UC Irvine School of Social Sciences