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The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America left an indelible mark on An Nguyen with the death of his father at the Pentagon, but the George Mason Â鶹¹ú²ú graduate student has overcome considerable hurdles to ensure that he honors his father every day by becoming the kind of young man his beloved father would have wanted.

George Mason Â鶹¹ú²ú alumna Shelley A. Marshall was in her office at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. A budget analyst in the comptroller's office of the Defense Intelligence Agency, she was scheduled to move to a new office on the other side of the building later that week.

Schar School of Policy and Government alumna Hiwot Yohannes has taken her lessons from her International Commerce and Policy degree and created a global skincare company for women of color.

Calahan Young qualified for the USA Men’s Goalball team and will compete in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, which begin Aug. 25.

Spelman College in Atlanta recently named Mason alum Liz Andrews executive director of Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. She began her new role Aug. 2.

Deborah Willis (PhD cultural studies 2003) remembers wanting to be a photographer since she was 10 years old. Her mother worked as a beautician, and Willis said the images and stories that surrounded her in her mom’s shop had a lasting impact on her career and her view of activism. Willis was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences this year in recognition of her life of activism as a photographer.

Schar School Public Policy graduate Kevin Jon Fandl passed away June 29 from leukemia.

Jay and Carolyn Marsh are bidding adieu to George Mason Â鶹¹ú²ú after a combined 90 years of service. But the larger-than-life roles they played in the university’s Athletics Department are here to stay.

Mason alumnus Roger Connor is an aeronautics curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

Activism runs in Laila Mokhiber’s blood.

Well before she became the director of communications at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA USA), Mokhiber was a child holding protest signs in human rights demonstrations. Before then, her mother held her as a baby in the gallery of the Supreme Court, as her father argued to incorporate Arab Americans into the Civil Rights Act in 1987.

The George Mason Â鶹¹ú²ú alumna has also made a name for herself. In 2020, she was named one of the top 40 influential Arab Americans under 40 by the Arab America Foundation.