Honors College alumni to share insights on leveraging interdisciplinarity during Sept. 27 panel

Pablo Balcazar

Pablo Balcazar is the policy associate at the American Immigration Council. In this role, he provides operational and logistical support, contributes to writing and research, and tracks policy work for the policy team. Prior to joining the Council, he worked for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives as a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Public Policy Fellow. Balcazar did a service year with AmeriCorps’ Public Allies program, where he worked within the housing department of the Damien Center, Indiana’s oldest and largest AIDS service organization. Pablo holds a B.A. in sociology and political science from Purdue. While on campus, he co-founded Purdue Immigrant Allies and was also an active member of Delta Pi Rho and the Latino Cultural Center.

Mikaela Meyer

Dr. Mikaela Meyer is from Chesterton, Indiana, and graduated from the Honors College in May 2018 with degrees in mathematical statistics and applied statistics and a minor in political science. At Purdue, she was selected as Indiana's 2017 Truman Scholar for her commitment to public service. She participated in what is now known as The Data Mine. After graduation, Mikaela received her Ph.D. in statistics and public policy from Carnegie Mellon University. Her dissertation focused on applying statistical methods to answer questions about the U.S. criminal legal system. She is currently a data scientist at The MITRE Corporation in the Washington, D.C., area, where she continues to apply her statistics training to policy research. In her spare time, Mikaela enjoys powerlifting, crocheting, playing board games, and traveling.

Anjali Byappanahalli

Anjali graduated from Purdue in May 2021 with honors through the College of Science. She majored in neurobiology and physiology with a minor in chemistry. At Purdue, Anjali became passionate about ethical leadership, serving as a mentor and in various leadership positions within the Honors Mentor Program. After graduating, she was a research fellow at the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, where she studied the intersection of social determinants of health with biomarkers in age-related health disparities. Anjali is a second-year Ph.D. student at The Ohio State University, studying cancer epigenetics and immuno-oncology in hematological malignancies. She aims to utilize machine learning algorithms to identify novel signatures in high-throughput biological data. In her free time, Anjali likes to learn new skills, spend time with her friends, and watch Formula 1.

Rahmaan Ruth

Rahmaan “Rocky” Ruth is a graduate and GEM Fellow of Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, M.S. Information Systems. He also holds an undergraduate degree from Purdue University's College of Health and Human Sciences in business management and product design technology. He currently serves as a business intelligence developer for the engineering design firm Sargent & Lundy, navigating the technical intricacies of information systems while addressing managerial and organizational challenges. He is an Honors College mentor for current undergraduate students in collaboration with Dr. Megha Anwer. His research contributed to the Purdue Honors College Leadership Toolbox with a publication titled “Leadership Toolbox: Effective Collaboration,” co-authored with Dr. Adam E. Watkins.

Antonia Roach

Antonia M. Roach graduated with a B.S. in psychological sciences and continued on to receive an M.S. in postsecondary higher education from Syracuse University. She is currently at Washington University in St. Louis pursuing a doctorate in sociology, where her main focus is to highlight the experiences of marginalized groups within social movements where they’ve been regarded as invisible; in particular, the Black community and the vegan movement. Antonia’s post-graduate goal is to pursue a professorship and, in general, continue to share and advance her research in a way that uplifts and supports communities of color. Antonia is from Easton, Pennsylvania, but has strong Midwestern roots. Her preferred pronouns are she, her, hers. She enjoys hiking, cooking and baking, painting, refinishing old furniture, and reading.

Maesa Ogas

Maesa Ogas graduated from Purdue University in the spring of 2023 with majors in food science and German and minors in LGBTQ+ studies and fermentation science. In the process of participating in the Maymester Honors College project titled “Visual Memories of Tippecanoe Communities,” they discovered their love for archives and oral history, leading them to pursue a Master of Library Science. They now live in Bloomington, studying for their master’s while working for the Indiana University Cinema as the House Manager for Events. When they’re not with their students or studying, they can be found exploring Indiana with their faithful Minolta X-300 or listening to podcasts about the forgotten annals of history.