Women's basketball senior Aliyah Stephens was chosen as the recipient of the Olive Sargeant Hamm Award.
The Olive Sargeant Hamm Award is presented as an all-around prize for a senior woman who exemplifies the best in college life – athletically, socially, and scholastically."
Perhaps none fit that description better than Stephens, who has an indelible mark on a wide swath of campus.
Stephens was a dynamo on the court, earning second team All-Centennial Conference honors as a sophomore and again as a junior, when she became the first player in program history to be named the conference's defensive player of the year. In three seasons, she tallied 1,053 points, 396 rebounds, 122 steals, 103 assists, and 99 blocked shots.
Stephens has kept a full calendar during her time at Ursinus. She's a senior Resident Advisor as well as the treasurer and community service chair of Phi Alpha Psi sorority. Stephens is a Bonner Leader and a Parlee Center for Science and the Common Good fellow, and also serves as a campus safety dispatcher.
A double major in biology and health & exercise physiology with a minor in Spanish, Stephens is a member of the Beta Beta Beta Biological Honors Society and a former head biology TA. She is an honors research student in Dr. Round's cellular neurobiology lab and became a co-author on the lab's first published paper: "Identification of MAGUK scaffold proteins as intracellular binding proteins of synaptic adhesion protein Slitrk2" in the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience.
Stephens has an extensive community service resume. She is the co-coordinator of the Music and Memory Program for Alzheimer and dementia patients at Frederick Living and works as a medical assistant the Phoenixville Clinic, which offers free medical services for uninsured communities. Stephens is also a senior mentor for Write Away, a non-profit centered on closing the digital divide and fostering meaningful self-expression and writing opportunities for all.
Stephens works as an ophthalmic medical technician at Ophthalmology Physicians and Surgeons. She also served as an assistant girls basketball coach at Paul VI High School in Haddonfield, New Jersey, her alma mater. Her internship history includes summer stints as a FUTURE Research Fellow (2017), Summer Fellows (2018), the Phoenixville Clinic (2019), and the Thomas Jefferson Summer Training and Enrichment Program (2020), as well as a fall internship at the University of Pennsylvania's Abramson Cancer Center (2018).
Remaining Awards Schedule
Thursday, May 13: Director of Athletics Award
Friday, May 14: Outstanding Senior Athletes