"In my home country, Mexico, secondary schools go only to the eleventh grade. When a family friend invited me to spend a twelfth year at their local high school in Columbus, Ohio, I eagerly accepted," says Dr. Ricardo Moreno, 1995. "It was an opportunity to gain another academic and cultural perspective."

That decision led to Kenyon, which Moreno chose in part because he knew that, as a premed student, he would receive "not only a great foundation in science but also exposure to many other disciplines." The winner of the 1999 William and Charlotte Cadbury Award, given each year to one student nationwide from an underrepresented minority for outstanding academic achievement, leadership, and potential for significant contributions to medicine, Moreno graduated from the Harvard University School of Medicine in 2000.

"I was very well prepared by my Kenyon experiences, both on campus and off," he says. "The summer after my sophomore year, I did research at Baylor University in Texas and the following year at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, mostly on molecular biology and genetics."

Moreno is currently a surgical resident at New York University Hospital. Eventually, he says, he may well work with the Hispanic community. "But whatever I do, the intellectual curiosity that was nurtured at Kenyon will be a part of me always."