Gora, a Pennsylvania native, has spent years studying tropical rainforests and the impact of lightning on forests. His accolades and awards include a $138,000 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship grant. He has also received a National Geographic Young Explorer grant and a fellowship from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.Ěý

During his graduation speech, Gora said he plans to encourage students to be unafraid to fail and take risks.Ěý

“I will urge students to apply that mentality both professionally and personally so that they can enact real change in their life and in their community,” he said.Ěý

Gora, who earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh, chose to attend UofL for his graduate work so he could study with Steve Yanoviak, a biology professor and the Tom Wallace Endowed Chair of Conservation.Ěý

He said his most memorable experience at UofL was when he was in Panama studying tropical trees in the canopy with Dr. Yanoviak.Ěý

“Although you may expect the view from a treetop to be expansive, this tropical rainforest is so dense that it is generally impossible to see more than a few dozen feet,” he said. “One day in 2014, I climbed a large Jacaranda tree along a ridge in the Barro Colorado Nature Monument. I suddenly emerged into a completely open area of the canopy. This tree stood taller than all of its neighbors and I had a clear view from this high point on the ridge. The forest extended through valleys and over ridgetops in all directions and in the distance I could see the Panama Canal. The view was breathtaking and this experience is never too far from mind when I climb a tree to do my research.”

Gora’s research on how lightning affects the trees in the tropics is part of a relatively new direction that Yanoviak has been developing throughout the past three years. There’s still not an understanding of how lightning functions ecologically. Researchers like Yanoviak and Gora are learning that, in some instances, what is thought to be the death of a tree brought about by disease is actually caused by lightning – and lianas may act as natural lightning rods.

“Dr. Yanoviak is a classical tropical field biologist with an exceptional ability to perceive how life functions in nature,” Gora said. “The opportunity to develop my own research under his mentorship drew me to attend UofL for my doctorate … I have followed my passion for ecology and never looked back.” 

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Of the more than 1,300 students on track to graduate this semester, 875 plan to take part in the Dec. 14 ceremony, which is at 7 p.m. at the KFC Yum! Center downtown. UofL President Neeli Bendapudi will preside. .Ěý

Strange will graduate with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Louisville School of Nursing during winter commencement Thursday, Dec. 15, at the KFC Yum! Center where she will serve as the student speaker.

In addition to the honor of serving as the student speaker, she was chosen as the Fall 2016 President’s Outstanding Graduate from the School of Nursing, bringing an unorthodox perspective to the program.

The 31-year-old earned a bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology from Vassar College in 2007 and returned to her hometown to teach English to immigrants from Vietnam, Mexico, Myanmar and Somalia living in Louisville’s South End.

Inspired to gain more international service experience, Strange joined the Peace Corps and was stationed in an impoverished village in Bulgaria. She worked in youth development, focusing on anti-trafficking and sexual and reproductive health awareness.

“It was an entire community that had no consistent access to medical care,” Strange said. “To me, health care is a fundamental human right that we should make equitable and accessible.” 

The Peace Corps experience prompted her to pursue a career in health care as a way to improve the lives of underserved populations. Her gut instinct had her consider the UofL School of Nursing and eventually work with those in need in her own community.

She began to view her hometown through a nursing lens, working in the emergency department at Norton Hospital, and grasped the health disparities that lower income residents face.

“We see a lot of people who use the ER as primary care for chronic conditions,” Strange said. “Some patients would try to stay in the hospital as long as they could because they didn’t have a way to receive care otherwise.”

She’s pulled from experiences in her nontraditional background to connect with and serve the disadvantaged in Louisville. On the cusp of entering the nursing workforce, Strange aspires to work in family care for a local nonprofit health center.

Her nursing education was fully supported by the selective , which helps alleviate the critical shortage of health care providers in federally-designated areas by requiring scholarship recipients to work at facilities in these areas for at least two years upon graduation.

School of Nursing Assistant Professor Glenda Adams, MSN, RNC, IBCLC, called Strange a future nursing leader.

“In a large cohort of nursing students, Karina stood out and shined,” Adams said. “She is the type of person that the future of the nursing profession needs. She is kind, patient and passionate about nursing.”