Changemakers

“Climate change is the main issue of my generation,” says Kai Mottley, ’26. “I feel like I have a responsibility to do something about it.” 

Rising sea levels and threats to the endemic species of his home state of Hawai'i are driving the longtime surfer to action.

Mottley hopes his interests in entrepreneurship and energy will combine with his love of the ocean to propel him toward new solutions. “The idea of creating something novel, useful, and important—such as a startup in ocean energy or marine renewable energy—sounds like a fulfilling challenge,” he says.

“In an era of sharply rising inequality, it’s vital to properly account for how race is embedded into our economic systems,” says Yuhe Faye Wang, an IDEAL Provostial Fellow within Stanford’s history department.

Wang’s research explores the role of race in 19th-century Supreme Court decisions that bolstered protections for corporations—protections that were originally intended to ensure the rights of newly emancipated Black Americans, and later Chinese non-citizens.

“If we want to properly understand why these inequalities exist and persist, we must pay close attention to how race and capitalism became further entangled through the post-Reconstruction expansion of corporate power.”

“Health equity means that all people have the potential to live their most healthy lives,” says Lisa Goldman Rosas, principal investigator at Stanford Medicine’s Food for Health Equity Lab.

As assistant professor of epidemiology and population health at Stanford School of Medicine, Goldman Rosas researches how increased access to healthy food, like locally grown fruits and vegetables, impacts chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease within communities.

She hopes her work with local health centers and partners will provide critical evidence of food-as-medicine programs to policymakers—and help determine how to scale these programs to benefit more people.

“There's a deep sense of pride in being part of the generation that’s actively shaping the future,” says Jodi Anderson, Jr., ’22, MA ’22, a researcher for the Stanford Accelerator for Learning (SAL).

Anderson is helping early-stage educational technology entrepreneurs access resources to implement and rapidly scale ideas—and create equitable, diverse, and responsive learning solutions. Anderson views accelerators as powerful vehicles for social change, noting the role of SAL in helping launch two justice technology startups, Rézme and PipeDreamers.

“It is quite miraculous. Teams are bringing solutions across the world,” he says. “No single person could do that on their own.”

While other kids in Plano, Texas, were building forts and playing with Play-Doh, Asher Hong was climbing door frames. He wanted to be Spider-Man.

Today Hong holds records Peter Parker never dreamed of. This past spring the rising junior helped the Stanford men’s gymnastics team win its fifth consecutive NCAA championship, while claiming individual titles on three events. 

As a member of the men’s senior national gymnastics team, he was the all-around champion at the 2023 U.S. Championships. This followed a third-place finish in 2022, and Hong credits his improvement to Stanford’s team-first approach.

Hong represented the United States and won a bronze medal in the team competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Maggie Steffens dreamed of being an Olympic soccer player, but she also loved swimming, basketball, and gymnastics. Her solution? Water polo, which combined elements of each. 

At Stanford, she led the women’s water polo team to three NCAA championships—while earning a bachelor’s in science, technology, and society as well as a master’s in management, science, and engineering. 

Steffens won golds in the 2012, 2016, and 2020 Olympics, and went on to become the sport’s all-time leading scorer. As Team USA captain, Steffens is hoping for a fourth straight gold medal, something no water polo team has achieved.

Steffens represented the United States in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Blame the pasta. Prior to high school, Valarie Allman’s heart had been set on dance. But in ninth grade she found herself drawn to track and field—and then to the offer of a free spaghetti meal for all of the school’s throwers. By graduation she held the state record.

Allman went on to be a six-time All-American at Stanford. She claimed gold at both the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics and holds the North American discus throw record.

Looking back, she has said, “that was the best spaghetti dinner of my entire life.”

Allman represented the United States and won a gold medal in discus at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Jonathan Tan’s parents had him learn to swim at age five—it was purely a safety thing. But by age eight, he was swimming competitively. Now 22, Tan is one of Singapore’s best swimmers. 

Despite extended breaks from training—he had to fulfill his national service requirement—Tan won gold medals in the 50m and 100m freestyle events at the 2023 Southeast Asian Games, achieving a qualifying time that will send him to the 2024 Olympics in the process. 

Tan enrolled at Stanford in 2023, and is preparing for a career in finance. He hopes to win a medal for his home country in his Olympic debut this summer.

Tan represented Singapore in the 2024 Paris Olympics.