2025 Student Inductees
The Phi Beta Kappa Society’s Omega of California chapter at Loyola Marymount University inducted the following students in 2025.
Mariana Barrios, a Political Science and History double major, is a member of the Ignatians Service Organization and served as Vice President of Social Standards for Delta Gamma Sorority and Publicity Chair for Phi Delta Phi Pre-Law Honor Society. She is completing both a senior thesis in history and a political science honors thesis and has presented her work at the LMU Undergraduate Research Symposium and the Midwestern Political Science Association conference. Barrios has also interned at the Los Angeles LGBT Center legal department and after graduation plans to attend law school.
Ayden Brown, an International Relations and French double major, is a member of the Phi Delta Phi Pre-Law Honor Society and student-athlete on the Women’s Cross Country team. She has served as a team representative on the Student Athletic Advisory Committee and provided insight on the student-athlete experience at meetings of the West Coast Conference schools. Brown has worked as an intern conducting research for asylum cases, is an LMU ambassador for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and helped launch LMU’s Global Human Rights Club, dedicated to highlighting underreported human rights violations. After graduation, Brown plans to attend law school.
Sophia Chavez, a Psychology and Spanish double major, is a member of Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology, and Sigma Delta Pi, the National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society. She is a recipient of the Arrupe Scholarship, is a McNair Scholar, and has been named to the Dean’s List each semester at LMU. Chavez works as a research assistant at a campus psychological science lab studying human cognition and vision and off campus as a registered behavior technician for children with autism spectrum disorder. She has also volunteered with LMU’s Student Psychological Services’ Wellness Educators Program to raise awareness of mental health resources and volunteers as a ROAR peer mentor with LMU’s Disability Support Services. Following graduation, Chavez plans to enter a doctoral program to become a clinical psychologist assisting underserved communities with mental health services.
Sydney Diaz, a Psychology and Spanish double major, has been named to the Dean’s List each semester of her four years at LMU, while also working as a waitress. She served as a RAINS research assistant on a project studying Central American migration and each summer volunteers as a medical translator for Faith in Practice, a nonprofit providing free surgeries and physical therapy in Guatemala. Following graduation, Diaz plans to enter a Master in Social Work program to become a social worker and serve her community.
Toma Frank, a psychology major and premed student, is a recipient of the Laura DeMyer Williamson Endowed Scholarship. He is president of the LMU Men’s Soccer Club, for which he coordinates training, games, tournaments, and other team activities, and works as a private coach, providing individual training and overseeing camps for soccer players ages 4-30. Frank has participated in events to promote Japanese culture at LMU and fundraising for Asian American and Pacific Islander artists. He has volunteered assisting dialysis patients and collaborating with technicians and nurses at Satellite Healthcare and worked as an LMU research assistant conducting neuropsychological research. This summer, Frank will intern at Valley Medical Urgent Care. Following graduation, he plans to continue taking premed classes and work in a healthcare related field.
Diego Luis is an International Relations major and Economics and Spanish minor. He is a member of Alpha Sigma Nu, the Jesuit Honor Society, and Sigma Iota Rho, the Honor Society for International Studies. Luis is a recipient of the Arrupe Scholarship and has been named to the Dean’s List each semester at LMU. He works at a tutor with Lions for Learning at Ocean Charter School and serves as Vice President of LMU’s Men’s Soccer Club.
Sadie Nanson is an English and Women’s and Gender Studies double major and Spanish minor. She is a member of the University Honors Program, the Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society, and Alpha Sigma Nu Jesuit Honor Society, and has been named to the Dean’s List every semester at LMU. Nanson served as Director of Special Projects for Gryphon Circle Service Organization, during which she worked weekly at St Columbkille School in Hawthorne and revived the pre-pandemic tradition of the Gryphon Games. She also volunteered at Lennox Middle School and Richstone Family Center, where she started an after-school program to foster community among nontraditional high school girls. Nanson worked at LMU’s Center for Service and Action and as a copyeditor at the Los Angeles Loyolan. She is publishing essays with the LMU journals La Voz, The Criterion, and Attic Salt, and is currently revising a fourth essay developed through an Honors Summer Research Fellowship, titled, “Same Sex Spaces and the Social Construction of Girlhood.” Nanson was also a DeVere Scholar, allowing her to attend summer school in Ireland, then spent Spring 2025 at the European Center for the Study of War and Peace in Croatia. Following graduation, she plans to attend graduate school for social work and continue advocating for educational justice.
Sarah Omachi, a Psychology major and Education minor, is a member of the Psi Chi International Psychology Honor society, Alpha Sigma Nu Jesuit Honor Society, and Academic Community of Excellence. She serves as the president of the LMU Psychology Club, Vice President of LMU Club Tennis, and Event Coordinator for the BCLA International Student Advisory Board, and works as a conversational tutor in Japanese at the Academic Resource Center. Omachi was twice awarded the Academic Community of Excellence’s Academic Achievement Award and this year is its Marshall Suaceda Rising Scholar. She has also been named LMU’s Club Sport Female Athlete of the Year. Omachi’s research includes working as a RAINS undergraduate researcher investigating barriers in bilingual education programs; a research assistant at NYU’s Mindful Education Lab, where she investigates the impact of mindfulness interventions in educational settings; and for the Psychosocial Risk and Resilience in Stress and Medicine lab, where she investigated the adverse psychosocial outcomes of stigma and shame in lung cancer patients. This work led to a co-authored article in the journal Translational Behavioral Medicine on Mindful Self-Compassion intervention. Currently Omachi is completing her honors thesis in Psychology and is preparing to enter a master’s program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, then plans to go on to a doctoral program in Education Psychology, focusing on creative and effective interventions to reduce adverse psychosocial experiences in educational settings.
Christina Paulazzo, a Biology major and recipient of the Western Italian Scholarship and William F. McLaughlin Memorial Scholarship, has been on the Dean’s List every semester at LMU. As a member of the LMU’s Division I Women’s Rowing team, she was named to the West Coast Conference All-Academic First Team in 2023 and Commissioner's Honor Roll in 2022, 2023, and 2024, and a Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association Scholar-Athlete in 2023 and 2024. Paulazzo has studied Blood Flow Restriction Resistance Training (B2RT) and its effects on body composition parameters as a research assistant for the Health and Human Sciences Department and presented her research at the Southwest American College of Sports Medicine Conference, the abstract for which was published in the International Journal of Exercise Science. Her on-campus jobs have included the biology department stockroom, mathematics department, and Burns Recreation Center, and she has volunteered with LMU Share a Meal and Ballona Creek Cleanup. She has interned at a pediatric dentistry office and currently works for an orthodontic office. Following graduation, Paulazzo plans to attend dental school and pursue a career in pediatric dentistry.
Nicole Raab, a Psychology major and Spanish minor, has been named to the Dean’s List each semester at LMU. She is a member of the LMU Psychology Club and LMU BUILD, the Business Innovation & Leadership Development organization. Raab works as a research assistant in Cognitive Behavioral Neuroscience. Last year she earned her California Real Estate Salesperson license and following graduation plans to work as a real estate agent while pursuing a doctorate in Clinical Psychology.
Benjamin Serna is a History major with a concentration in Race, Gender, and Culture, and Spanish double major who will graduate after three years. He has been named to the Dean’s list every semester and is a recipient of the Arrupe Scholarship, E. Schulz-Bischof Scholarship, and History Department Outstanding Analytical Essay Award. Serna is a member of the Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society and member and former president of the Magis Service Organization, a brotherhood of male-identifying and gender nonconforming students dedicated to addressing homelessness and educational inequality in Los Angeles. He has served as a mentor and Vice President for the El Espejo Mentoring Program, working with students at Lennox Middle School. Serna has been a Rains Undergraduate Research Fellow studying the 1969-70 Occupation of Alcatraz Island by Native American activists and traveled with the Alternative Breaks program to Plenitud PR a farm in Las Marías, Puerto Rico focused on agroecology, permaculture, senior care, bioconstruction, and water security. He has also taken a service-immersion trip with the De Colores Program to work with migrants in Tijuana, Mexico. For the 2025 Undergraduate Research Symposium, Serna presented on his work with the Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights, where he learned from community members, Jesuit priests, and women elders involved in community action through the Catholic Church. Following graduation Serna plans to take a gap year then pursue graduate school and a career in education or law.
Madison Stanford, an Applied Mathematics major and Physics minor, is a member of the LMU Honors program, Pi Mu Epsilon Mathematics Honor Society, Society of Women Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and LMU Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science Club, for which she is vice president. She has worked four years with and is currently a manager for the Burns Recreation Center and has tutored and served as a teaching assistant for various mathematics courses. Her research includes multiple projects with LMU’s Fluids of Astrophysical Bodies laboratory and through the Europa ICONS program worked as a NASA intern, where she developed a solver for charged particle motion in the Europa-Jupiter magnetic interaction region. While at NASA Stanford also became interested in potentially habitable icy satellites and her “Icy Moons Convection” project studies how currents on icy moons capture and transport subsurface particles and transfer heat. Following graduation, Stanford plans to pursue a PhD in Space Sciences, concentrating on Uranian icy satellites.
Molly Talbot is a double major in English and Philosophy, Dance minor, and member of the University Honors Program, Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society, and Phi Sigma Tau Philosophy Honor Society. She is also a Knott Fellow in the English department and active with the Belles Service Organization, for which she was Vice President of Service. Currently Talbot is an editor for the journals Criterion and LA Miscellany, and editorial assistant for an academic book on rethinking environmentalism. She has studied abroad at the European Center for the Study of War and Peace in Zagreb, Croatia, where she interned with Booksa, a cultural hub for the arts and an online literary portal, and her creative writing and criticism is being published this year in Criterion, LA Miscellany, and Attic Salt. After graduation Talbot plans to pursue an MFA in creative writing and write literary fiction.
Louis Wang is a Health and Human Sciences major with minors in Health & Society and Chemistry, a Presidential Scholar, and a recipient of the Renee L. Harrangue, Ph.D. Award for leadership. He has worked as a teaching assistant and tutor for classes in the Biology, Chemistry, and Health and Human Sciences departments. Currently, Wang serves as a resident advisor, an intern with the Campus Recreation Athletic Training program, and a member of the Creare Service Organization, through which he mentors and tutors under-resourced youth in Los Angeles. Wang began a research project through LMU’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program focusing on neuroadaptations following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction surgery and has continued this work through the academic year. Following graduation, Wang plans to take a gap year to gain experience before pursuing further education in healthcare.