21 Under 21 Series: Valerie Tu Uyen Nguyen

Hometown: Centreville, VA

Major: Biology; Minor(s): Medical Anthropology & Chemistry

With career goals such as a pediatric hematologist or oncologist, Valerie takes her roots in pediatric care from her sister, a childhood cancer patient. Through her work as the Carolina Pediatric Attention, Love and Fundraising Chair, as well as an Undergraduate Researcher at the UNC Lineberger Cancer Center, she believes it to be beneficial to redirect her own experiences to create improved situations for other families.

Who is a woman of color who inspires you and why?

“My mother! Living through the Vietnam war the majority of her life going 10 years without her father and mother due to imprisonment from the communist party, she helped raise her 6 other siblings living through famine and social discrimination due to political differences. Coming to the U.S, she had to leave everything behind and restart her life from nothing. Later on just as things were beginning to smooth out she became a mother to a childhood cancer patient and watched her own daughter at age 13 die before her eyes. During my sister's treatment and every day, my mom was an absolute super mom! My mom always cooked freshly cooked meals for our family while balancing a full-time job and making intermittent phone calls to doctor's offices during her lunch breaks during the most difficult time of her life. She inspires me daily and serves as my rock. My mom is intelligent, hardworking, humble, thoughtful, kindhearted and all that I hope to be.”

“I would say reflecting back my personal development as a person. I can finally have confidence in myself to say that I am proud of the person that I see myself becoming. I am proud that I have taken advantage of all the opportunities that I can possibly get my hands on at UNC from going to talks on topics that I'm not super knowledgeable about to going outside of my comfort zone to meeting people of different backgrounds all over campus. I am proud to be ok with reaching for goals that scare me a lot and not letting the fear of failure inhibit me to dream bigger. Most importantly I am proud that I am open to change but also remaining true to my core values.”