The Alice Eaves Barns Award Outstanding Achievement in Master’s Program

The Alice Eaves Barns Award is named in honor of a Graduate School staff member’s many years of outstanding service to the Graduate School. This award recognizes a student who has displayed tenacity in the face of adversity while attaining excellence in both the classroom and outside endeavors and is given in recognition of outstanding achievement in a master’s program. 

In 2023, Wala Al Zara graduated from the University of Louisville with a BA with dual majors in Psychology and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Before coming to the University of Louisville, she studied Molecular Biology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. There, she was a teaching assistant in the Department of Biology and taught BIOL 1020: Principles of Biology. While at the University of Louisville, she was very active and volunteered at the PEACC Center and engaged in campus advocacy for students who have been impacted by interpersonal violence and sexual assault. She also got certified as a Medical Assistant at Norton Healthcare and worked in several clinics, including Neurology (Multiple Sclerosis clinic and concussion clinic), Norton Prompt Care, and Norton Cancer Institute. She also I volunteered at Kentucky Refugee Ministries and The Center for Women and Families in Louisville to assist refugees and asylum seekers in navigating the healthcare system in the U.S., interpreting for therapy sessions, and translating legal documents.   Her recommenders write of her resilience in the face of numerous hardships, with this comment exemplifying her tenacity: “Wala’s spirit is infectious.  Regardless of the trauma she has experienced, she is full of warmth and compassion, a robust sense of humor and deep curiosity that touches everyone she meets.  Already she has lived lifetimes and embodies the definition of resiliency and tenacity.”

After completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Louisville, she was accepted into the MA in Applied Philosophy with a concentration in Health Care Ethics. After graduation, she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Bioethics.