Wednesday, April 12, 2017 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, April 12, 2017 // The Statement 
 
5B

Meet the Students

Student of the Year Issue

“I loved the people, I think is what first drew 

me to it. … It’s a very specific kind of openness 
you have to have, as a performer.”

It’s the end of the week, and though Megumi 

Nakamura, a sophomore in the University of 
Michigan’s Music, Theatre & Dance School, is 
juggling a packed schedule — she has six hours 
of class on an average day, is currently working 
on two theater productions, is often in rehearsal 
until 12:30 in the morning, works with faculty in 
the School of Music, Theatre & Dance on issues 
of diversity and facilitates workshops for visiting 
elementary school students and middle-school-

ers through the Michigan 
Performance 
Outreach 

Workshop — she’s friendly 
and eager to talk.

This is the kind of open-

ness that, it seems safe to 
say, would be exhaust-
ing to most people. Luck-
ily, Nakamura is not most 
people.

She leans forward as 

she continues speaking, 
spreading her hands in the 
kind of emphatic gesture 
that comes naturally to 
her.

“I started to figure out 

that being a community leader and activist, the-
ater was an incredible outlet for that, and it gave 
me a voice, and it was a way that I understood 
how to give other people a voice, how to tell sto-
ries that I wanted to tell.”

Nakamura is working to share this outlet 

with others through the Michigan Performance 
Outreach Workshop. She joined MPOW, which 
brings students from Detroit-area schools that 
have little or no funding for the arts to the Uni-
versity for a day of performance workshops, as a 
freshman. Through it, she’s able to accomplish 
what she considers to be her overall goal in col-
lege: “to bring back a high level of arts to under-
funded schools like that” and to “spark interest” 
in performance.

She smiles as she describes the kids’ reactions, 

saying, “We do, like, one day of workshops with 
them, and performances, and at the end of the 
day, students walk away being like, ‘I can be an 
actor,’ or like, ‘You know what? I think I’m a good 
actor!’ ”

Involvement in MPOW seems to have been a 

natural path for Nakamura, who grew up attend-
ing public schools in San Rafael, Calif., that also 
had little funding for arts education. After real-
izing her love for the performing arts, she was 
able to find outside resources through the San 
Francisco-based American Conservatory The-
ater, and eventually began providing them for 
others: She started teaching theater as an assis-
tant in high school, and began teaching theater 
and dance on her own after she graduated.

Now, as the incoming vice president of 

MPOW, Nakamura is determined to expand the 
impact of theater as a means of nontraditional 
learning and communicating unvoiced stories 
and experiences. While the organization cur-
rently focuses on fifth-, sixth- and seventh-grade 
kids, she’s hoping to expand it to include high-
schoolers and college-prep-style workshops.

Despite the amount of time and effort she puts 

into the performing arts, she doesn’t get tired of 
it. When asked what her ideal, stress-free situa-
tion is, she laughs and responds: “Probably see-
ing theater, honestly. … That’s kind of the most 
relaxing times I have, to just sit and appreciate 
my classmates and fellow actors and see the 
work people are doing. I think … a lot of the most 

exciting work that happens here comes directly 
from the students — student-directed and stu-
dent-written pieces, because those are the shows 
that are reflecting our current situations.”

Nakamura’s commitment to giving voice to 

relevant stories is one of the primary reasons 
for her involvement in different communities on 
campus. She doesn’t get carried away with her-
self, though — she understands the importance 
of stepping back to assess a situation from the 
outside, a practice that can easily get lost in the 
drive to stand out as a leader on campus.

“Coming here was overwhelming at first 

because … I wanted to be able to connect with 
anyone that I possibly could, and there’s so many 
people here, and so many different identities that 
it’s been a really incredible and challenging pro-
cess to step back and say that, in order for me to 
one day be the leader and activist that I want to 
be, and be someone who … facilitates platforms 
for people to share their voices, their opinions, I 
have to understand those communities first.”

As a leader, Nakamura is able to teach and 

empower, but more importantly, she’s able to 
listen. 

“I know I can help more if I wait and I learn 

from the members of that community and recog-
nize my own ignorance,” Nakamura says.

She places her hands resolutely on the table in 

front of her as she says this. Performance, after 
all, demands a certain amount of receptiveness 
to the audience — and Nakamura’s ready to take 
the stage.

Megumi Nakamura

BY MARISA FREY, Senior Copy Editor

Cancer has closely affected LSA senior Rebec-

ca Ress throughout her life. Her mother has been 
battling colorectal cancer for the past 10 years, 
and she lost her father to lymphoma three days 
before the start of her freshman year. But soon 
after arriving on campus she, at the urging of 
her sorority sisters, became involved with Camp 
Kesem at the University of Michigan.

Camp Kesem at the University is part of a 

national nonprofit of primarily college students 
that organizes free camps for children of adults 
battling cancer. Camp Kesem at the Univer-
sity organizes two one-week camps in August at 
Camp Copneconic in Fenton, and has nearly 100 
student volunteers involved. Ress was drawn to 
the camp, as it was something she wished she had 
when her parents were battling cancer.

“I grew up having two parents who were both 

fighting cancer, and I didn’t have any resource like 
that,” she said. “It was definitely an ostracising 
feeling. So coming to this university, and realizing 
that I had the power to spread this community 
to other children in the area to have that kind of 
community was a no brainer.”

Ress started off her first summer as a coun-

selor, and quickly became more involved, being 
promoted to outreach chair on its coordinating 
board. In that role, she managed camper-family 
relations and reunions, as well as the organization 
of medical staff and information for the camp. She 
now serves as co-director, responsible for all the 
aspects of the camp’s planning and fundraising. 

Ress estimates that it costs $1,000 to send one kid 
to the camp. This summer, the camp will be its 
largest ever, as it is hoping to serve 260 kids. 

While it may be a lot of work, Ress feels that her 

job is incredibly rewarding.

“I like the mission-focused work, and feeling 

that passion,” Ress said. “I spend so much time 
working on Kesem that it doesn’t feel like work 
when you’re working for something that you care 
about that much.”

Ress stresses that Camp Kesem tries to give 

campers as normal a camp experience as possible.

“We say that Camp Kesem isn’t a boo-boo 

camp — it’s not like a cancer camp,” she said. “It’s 
pretty much a regular, crazy, dirty summer camp 
where we’re swimming and on the lake front and 
doing ziplining and messy games and things like 
that.”

However, the camp does dedicate one day of the 

week as an “empowerment day” to help campers 
through their tough times. The day begins with 
counselors and campers alike sharing their own 
stories if they choose, with the goal of empower-
ing themselves and other campers. Ress felt that 
this day was most impactful to her when she was 
helping others prepare their stories.

“My first year I spoke at empowerment, and 

the following years I’ve learned that I find more 
joy in finding others to speak,” Ress said. “So help-
ing other counselors helping campers through 
their stories, and bringing them forward to feel 
the power to share their stories has been really 

meaningful for me.”

Co-directing the camp isn’t the only hat Ress 

wears. She also cares for her mother, who is still 
battling colorectal cancer, as her father has passed 
and her siblings have moved away. She drives an 
hour home to Troy every other weekend or so, to 
make sure her mother isn’t always alone.

“Her chemo is pretty rigorous right now, where 

she can’t always get up and down the stairs or feed 
herself,” Ress said. “Sometimes, I need to take her 
to the hospitals to get IVs or things like that.”

Her mother’s long-term treatments were on 

her 
mind 
even 
as Ress 
was 
choos-
ing 
a 

college. 
Her 
mother 
goes 
through 
a 
new 

round 
of treat-
ments 
about 
every 
year and 
a half to 

keep her cancer under control.

“Coming here, and when I was applying to 

colleges, I definitely had to consider distance to 
home,” she said.

While Ress has faced many obstacles before 

and during her college experience, her experi-
ences with her parents battling cancer and the 
campers she works with have given her a new 
perspective on what it means to have a bad day.

“I tripped and spilled my coffee and it was just 

a typical kind of bad day, and I couldn’t help but 
laugh because I was so grateful to have a silly type 
of bad day.”

Rebecca Ress

BY JEREMY KAPLAN, Daily Opinion Editor

Every morning, Keiana Cavé looks in the mir-

ror and tells herself to be a badass. And so far, her 
mantra has worked.

The University of Michigan freshman is a 

member of Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2017 — 
one of the youngest in the Energy category. 

Cavé was recognized for her work surround-

ing the BP oil spill of April 2010, which she start-
ed researching at Tulane University when she 
was 15. Her primary goal was to prove that there 
is something more dangerous about a layer of oil 
sitting on the ocean surface than just pollution 
— the reaction of UV rays from the sun on the oil-
water mixture eventually forms chemicals that 
can cause cancer.

“I started off (in high school) doing four 

sports: ballet, swim, cheer and track,” Cavé said. 
“The last thing on my mind was being in a lab 
24/7 … I didn’t really think much of it — it was 
just a summer. It was cool. They paid me.”

Cavé entered her research in a local science 

fair, and ended up winning, despite her last-
minute poster. She then went on to the 2015 Intel 
International Science and Engineering Fair and 
earned second place out of 2,600 participants. 
As part of Cavé’s award, NASA and the MIT Lin-
coln Laboratory named asteroid “2000 GD136” 
after her. The award gave Cavé confidence about 
the importance of her work and motivated her to 
take it further.

“I had to first show that (these carcinogens) 

actually exist,” Cavé said. “And then once I 
showed that they exist I had to show that they 
are harmful, and then after that I moved into 
finding a solution.”

Before her research, the methods used to 

clean up oil spills weren’t dealing with the car-
cinogens at all. So Cavé invented a carcinogen-
fighting molecule, and turned her research into 
her own business — a startup called Mare. Now 
she is funded by Chevron, which gave her $1.2 

million to continue her research.

“It started off as just the molecule, just the oil 

spill, but now I think the company is more based 
off of the neutralization of toxins,” Cavé said. 
“I’m sure you read articles all the time, if you’re 
ever scrolling through Facebook, and you see 
something that says: ‘Warning! Don’t use your 
deodorant anymore because it will give you can-
cer!’ It can get pretty serious. … We want those 
companies to come to us so that we can neutral-
ize whatever carcinogen is in the product with-
out compromising the integrity of the product.”

But Cavé didn’t originally know how to run 

a business. Last summer, she was the youngest-
ever attendee of the Global Entrepreneurship 
Bootcamp at MIT, where she figured out how to 
translate her complicated research into a com-
prehensible marketing platform. Now, she man-
ages the business, has a team of people working 
for her and personally connects with Mare’s cli-
ents, including Chevron and Brazilian Blowout.

Cavé also holds two patents and has published 

two research papers. Her work with Microsoft 
is further proof of her unparalleled intellect. She 
taught herself HTML at age 8 and worked for 
Microsoft, designing websites for more than a 
year while still in high school.

After receiving a full ride to the University, 

Cavé enrolled in the College of Engineering, 
where she is studying chemical engineering. 
While taking a full course load, Cavé also spends 
many late nights in the lab continuing her 
research. She finds time to be an active member 
of the Entrepreneurs Leadership Program — 
though she admits that she doesn’t sleep much.

In addition to all her scholastic and scien-

tific pursuits, Cavé is a brand representative for 
Lululemon and Francesca’s, advertising their 
clothing through her social media posts. Lulule-
mon reached out to Cavé specifically, but she ini-
tiated the partnership with Francesca’s herself.

“I was on a flight from Miami to (Ann Arbor),” 

Cave said. “And they lost my luggage. I had a 
photoshoot with Humanly magazine … I was 
freaking out. It was all of my favorite stuff.”

“I went into disaster mode. I went to the mall 

and walked into Francesca’s and was like: ‘Look, 
I don’t have any money. The airport lost my stuff. 
I have a photoshoot. Is there anything you guys 
can do? Can you guys dress me?’ And that was 
the start of a relationship. So now, they give me 
stuff every two weeks, whenever they get new 
shipments.”

Francesca’s and Lululemon were not the 

only ones to crave Cavé’s influence, though. Her 
brand of female empowerment has been so pro-
lific that MTV scooped Cavé up to do a short seg-
ment for their “A Woman Did That” campaign. 
The first one-minute bit was so successful that 

the network is planning on having Cavé return 
for a weekly segment.

Cavé has already accomplished more than 

most college graduates, a fact that was noted by 
Congressman Cedric Richmond (D–La.) Feb. 23, 
2016, in his speech to the House of Representa-
tives regarding Cavé’s accomplishments. But 
these days, Cavé is giving her own speeches.

“Oh yeah, I forgot to say, I’m doing a Ted 

Talk in Barcelona on May 4th,” Cavé said. “I’m 
actually going to talk about the power of being 
obnoxious.”

While Cavé attributes her success to “being 

obnoxious,” she pursues everything she does 
with vigor and dedication. That may be abrasive 
to some, but Cavé has single-handedly managed 
to change the world by the age of 19 — and that is 
definitely badass.

Keiana Cavé

BY MARGARET KOLCON, Daily Sports Writer

Ben Rathi is, first and foremost, an incredibly 

kind person. The friendliness emanating from 
the fifth-year senior from Novi when he walks 
into Espresso Royale is not the oozing or over-
whelming kind, but mild and genuine. And if 
kindness is first, helpfulness is a very close sec-
ond. 

While pursuing two degrees in business and 

computer science, stopping just two classes short 
of a third in biomedical science, Ben has had a 
wealth of prestigious internships at software, 
finance and health care firms; and founded a 
successful, now national-scale, nonprofit orga-
nization that collects unused medical supplies 
and delivers them to impoverished countries for 

a fraction of their market value. He is aware of 
just how successful he already is — whereas oth-
ers might try to downplay their achievements 
for the appearance of humility, he talks comfort-
ably and matter-of-factly. He does not hold any 
illusions about his success either — he knows he 
owes it to much more than just himself.

“I started calculating, and I swear this was 

in 5th grade, but I was like, ‘All right, there are 7 
billion people in the world,’ income distribution, 
looked at some statistics, all that, and I was like, 
‘There are probably 6 billion people in the world 
who would do anything to have the opportuni-
ties I have,’ “ he tells me.

That gratitude, he says, is what gives him the 

motivation to stay in and work on a Friday night, 
to the extent that his peers think of him as “the 
crazy business kid” or “a machine,” and what 
gives him his desire to help. Though business is 
his main passion now, coming into college, Ben 
planned to help people by becoming a doctor. 
After completing his freshman year, he decided 
to volunteer in a Nepalese hospital for a month.

“I told myself, ‘All right, if you want to be a 

doctor, it’s one thing to do it at a nice hospital 
like Michigan or Northwestern, it’s another 
thing to feel true depravity and poverty, and 
witness people who might not have much 
going for them,’ “ he says. The hospital he went 
to, he told me, though it was one of the best in 
the country, suffered hours-long E.R. waiting 
times because of understaffing and underfund-
ing. Patients had to share beds and would often 
leave sicker than they came in from a disease 
another patient had given them. Simple medi-
cal supplies such as gloves and bedsheets had to 
be reused. Working at a hospital back in Novi, 
though, restocking shelves, he witnessed a very 
different situation, in which unused supplies 
were thrown out because of expiration dates. 
As well as wanting to have a broader under-
standing of the world, Ben says seeing the inef-
ficiencies of the medical industry is what led 
him to leave it for business.

“End goal, I would love to influence policy 

change, but I’m not delusional and it’s tough 
to lobby against the medical industry,” he 
says. “So while the waste is happening, I was 
thinking, ‘Is there a way to bridge the gap?’ “

As it turns out, there was. In his sophomore 

year, Ben founded Blueprints For Pangaea, a 

501(c)(3) nonprofit, with more than $25,000 
in prize money from several business compe-
titions. The business, which has now expand-
ed to nine other colleges and universities, has 
a model that is quite sustainable. If it can get 
the technically expired medical supplies for 
$5,000, and their value is $1,000,000, he says, 
governments would be happy to pay $6,000.

Weeks away from graduation, and hav-

ing left Blueprints For Pangaea safely in the 
hands of the next generation of students, 
Ben’s new dream is venture capitalism.

“When you’re in a startup, you have to 

commit all your time and effort and energy 
into that one startup, and so while I was doing 
Blueprints, a lot of cool opportunities came 
my way, but I was committed to Blueprints,” 
he says. “With VC you get to participate in 
multiple startups. You’re on the cutting edge 
of technology. And if you couldn’t tell, my life 
dream is just … to accelerate our ascent into 
the future, I guess, because I think technol-
ogy can improve everyone’s life, in an egali-
tarian way.”

If he had to distill his story into one word, 

though, it would be efficiency.

“Academically, I was learning about effi-

ciency on a microscale in CS, right — ‘How 
do you get 0.1 seconds faster in the code?’ On 
a macrolevel in business — ‘How does Tesla 
create a cheaper battery?’ So I’ve been study-
ing efficiency all my life, and I’d like to con-
tinue that.”

So while it may seem like a technical word, 

to Ben, it’s just another way of practicing 
kindness.

BY ANDREW HIYAMA, Daily Staff Reporter

Ben Rathi