Power Players

Meet the 2020 President’s Leadership Award winners

By Danielle Lopez| Photographs by Matt Wright-Steel

Look around UT Austin’s campus and you’ll find no shortage of talented young minds. But even in a crowd this impressive, there are the ones who stand out. Since 1985, the Texas Exes has recognized students who have demonstrated remarkable leadership within the Longhorn community with the President’s Leadership Awards. From motivating others to changing what health care looks like to exploring our galaxy and beyond, these six recipients are deeply passionate and endlessly curious. The best part? They’re just getting started.

Mamadou Balde

Senior, Chemical Engineering
Hometown: Conakry, Guinea
Credentials: National Society of Black Engineers member, American Institute of Chemical Engineers member

Mamadou Balde has one ultimate commitment in life: help reduce other people’s suffering. “That is what’s guiding me,” he says. He dreams of becoming a physician one day, following the lead of his father, who is a doctor in Guinea, where most of Balde’s immediate family still lives. In 2011, Balde and his older sister left their home country and moved in with their uncle in Beaumont, Texas, for a better education. Upon graduation in May, Balde will relocate to Houston to work for Exxon Mobil as a process engineer. “When I got to UT, I thought, ‘I have to take advantage of this opportunity that people in my country would love to have,’” he says. He founded MamBa Inspire Co., an LLC that hosts a motivational speaking series around high schools in Austin and launched two podcasts, You Are Not Alone and You Can Do It Too. He also co-founded the Women’s Relief Initiative, which provides feminine hygiene products to impoverished women in underdeveloped African communities. “One thing I’ve learned at UT is that instead of worrying about your career, ask yourself what kind of impact you want to leave on the world,” he says. “Think about how you want to be remembered when you are gone.”

Josefina Salazar Morales

Senior, Aerospace Engineering
Hometown: Heredia, Costa Rica
Credentials: Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics peer advisor, Women in Aerospace for Leadership and Development past president, Texas Spacecraft Laboratory flight hardware lead

Growing up, Josefina Salazar Morales’ father’s job as an Intel engineer took her family everywhere: from Costa Rica to California to Israel to Mexico, and finally to Austin, where they have lived the past 10 years. Moving so frequently gave Morales an affinity for the unknown. Her next destination? Space. “It’s so expansive and waiting to be explored,” says Morales, who grew up reading Scientific American and decided early on that she wanted to work in a STEM field. Aerospace engineering turned out to be a perfect fit, and when she started at UT, she joined organizations like the Women in Engineering Program, mentoring incoming first-year aerospace engineering students. This summer, Morales will intern for Boeing before starting full time as an associate core spacecraft engineer at Maxar Technologies in California in the fall. “I want to be a part of the next frontier,” she says. “I want a seat at the table so I can make decisions. I know that I can make a difference now, and I’m making the right steps to make a difference in the future.”

Tyson Smiter

Senior, Mechanical Engineering
Hometown: Southlake, Texas
Credentials: Equal Opportunity in Engineering Program tutor, Cockrell School of Engineering Advising Committee representative, Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Advisory Board representative

Tyson Smiter didn’t expect to spend the last four years at UT Austin working toward becoming an engineer. The former high school linebacker thought he would go off to college as a student athlete, playing football. But after sustaining an injury his senior year, Smiter called an audible. With two engineers for parents, Smiter’s decision to enroll in the Cockrell School of Engineering was a no-brainer. His outgoing personality and competitive spirit led him to become the first person ever elected to two terms as president of the UT Austin chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, which aims to improve the recruitment and retention of black and other minority engineers. This summer, he’ll head to Redmond, Washington, to work for Microsoft as a hardware engineer and supply chain associate. His life goals aren’t as much about one particular career path but about being a good role model for his family. “My means of getting there are fluid,” he says. “I think by working hard, doing my best, and being myself — I’ll get to my end goal.”

Brooke Reaves

Junior, Plan II, Business Honors, Economics
Hometown: Victoria, Texas
Credentials: Plan II Director’s Student Advisory Council member, KIPP Austin Collegiate & Arts and Letters volunteer, founder of BreadwinnHER female speaker series

In Brook Reaves’ almost three years on campus, she has turned each of her passions into realities: when she wanted to be a journalist, she launched UT’s first political review The Texas Orator; and when she considered being a designer, she created Design for America, a studio that merges social impact with design. She says she is entrepreneurial by nature, which she learned from her father, who ran a diner in her hometown. “I didn’t start out college thinking I would have this kind of breadth,” she says. “But it has been amazing. One of my favorite things is being able to have so many resources and people and the vastness of UT.” At the moment, she feels drawn toward social entrepreneurship, working with companies that solve social or environmental problems. That’s why she founded Nurses for Texas, an enterprise that pairs colleges with low-income high schools so students can graduate with nursing accreditation. “I’ve always been interested in a lot of things,” she says. “I want to do something that could make a difference. That’s what intrinsically drives me.”

Oscar Armando Lopez II

Sophomore, Business Honors, Government
Hometown: Laredo, Texas
Credentials: Honors Business Association student mentor, Student Services Budget Committee member, Student Government Longhorn Legislative Aide mentor

Oscar Armando Lopez III is driven to give back to the community that raised him. He thinks of his family members who moved to the U.S. to give him a better life, like his father who immigrated from Mexico and his grandparents who came from Honduras. “The sacrifices they made for me and future generations drives me,” he says. “I want to be the best I can be.” Working with the Google Public Policy Fellowship in Washington, D.C., last summer, he learned that his hometown of Laredo has the worst access to broadband services in the nation. In those months, he executed SEC filings for the company and performed legal research to learn about the boundaries of artificial intelligence and how it could help his city. It’s too early to tell where life will take Lopez, but for now he sees himself becoming a diplomat. “I want to use my life to solve broader societal issues and do what I can to help others,” he says. “There is still a lot of work to be done in this world.”

Shilpa Rajagopal

Junior, Biology Honors, Marketing
Hometown: Irvine, California
Credentials: Texas Orange Jackets member, UT Nritya Sangam Indian Classical Dance Troupe member, UT Natural Sciences Council member, Health Advocacy Student Coalition president, HealthyHorns peer educator, Forty Acres Scholar

Shilpa Rajagopal’s three years on the Forty Acres have been transformative. She joined the Texas Orange Jackets, a prestigious female service organization on campus; competed nationally in her Indian classical dance troupe; and has served as a council member for the College of Natural Sciences. But most importantly, Rajagopal found the intersection of her two passions: health care and business. Ultimately, she wants to attend medical school and work in health care, addressing disparities and making it more accessible to communities in need. This summer she will be collaborating with a team of students through the UT President’s Award for Global Learning project, helping develop an app-based LGBTQ+ curriculum for health care providers in south India. “I’m curious about the world,” she says. “I’m hoping to just be a sponge during my time at UT and soak up everything the university has to offer.”