Stacy Mahiga’s middle name, Rahaka, means “sun goddess of joy” in her native Swahili language. The University of Delaware senior, who was born and raised in Kenya, is on track to earn a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience this May, after earning a bachelor’s in interpersonal communication in December. Mahiga’s effervescence — she’s smiling more often than not and favors whimsical touches, like flowers in her hair — is testimony to her resolute optimism in the face of hardship.  

When Mahiga was 16, her mother died of a brain tumor and she was sent to the U.S. to live with her father, whom she knew only from occasional visits. She graduated from William Penn High School in New Castle, Delaware, and matriculated at UD in interpersonal communication. But then the COVID-19 pandemic upended her life. Her father had been visiting Kenya when the pandemic first hit and was unable to come back to the U.S. due to travel restrictions. Weeks and months went by, and Mahiga had no one to turn to. Alone and rudderless, she dropped out of UD and took a job at a retail store. She eventually ended up homeless and spent time in a shelter.   

“You weren’t allowed to just stay in bed and mope. You had to be doing something — working on the computer, looking for jobs or finding housing leads,” Mahiga said. 

It was during one of those computer sessions that Mahiga emailed Brian Armstrong, UD assistant dean of students, and made the connection that not only brought her back to school but introduced her to a new career path.     

“I always liked STEM but I didn’t have the confidence that I could achieve in this area,” Mahiga said. “The communication department has been great to me. I started a news program on STN 49, the student-run news channel, and I regularly blog, but I realized, career-wise, that isn’t where my heart and passion lie.” 

Armstrong told Mahiga about the McNair Scholars program, leading her to the track she’s on now. Her goal is to go to medical school.

“If I can contribute to fighting cancer, whether through research or patient care, I will be honoring my mom’s memory,” she said. 

UD’s McNair Scholars, one of 151 such programs nationwide, works to increase the number of graduate degrees awarded to first-generation, low-income students and students from groups traditionally underrepresented in graduate education. 

“I remember that first conversation with Stacy well,” Armstrong said. “It was clear that despite the many challenges she was dealing with, she was ready to come back to school. My job was to identify the pathways to make that happen. As soon as she said she wanted to do research, I thought of the McNair program. It provided not only research opportunities but also the critically important housing and funding that she needed.”  

Since returning to UD in fall 2021, Mahiga has embarked on a staggering array of curricular and co-curricular activities, including serving as a peer mentor for introductory biology, a studio fellow for integrated biology and chemistry, and a director of the Minority Association of Pre-Medical Students. The project closest to her heart is Step Up Delaware, a nonprofit she founded to connect low-income and at-risk middle and high school students with college-level mentors.

Speaking one morning, fresh from a mentoring workshop at Newark High School the evening before, Mahiga noted that programs like Step Up Delaware are sorely needed. 

“We need to build a pipeline for STEM fields,” she said. “Youth need to see positive role models who look like them who are succeeding in college and later in life.”  

Marshala Lee-McCall, a physician and the medical director for the Harrington Trust at Christiana Care, has become one of those positive role models in Mahiga’s life, helping her to navigate the journey to medical school and beyond. The Harrington Trust works to reduce health care disparities for underserved and disadvantaged populations and, as a part of that mission, supports underrepresented students who are interested in careers in medicine. Currently the Harrington Trust helps pay for Mahiga’s study prep classes for MCATs, the medical school exams. As for Marshala-Lee, it’s far more personal — she is part mom and cheerleader, part coach and sounding board, and when needed, a taskmaster to Mahiga.