“If you’ve been a citizen all your life, voting might be something you take for granted,” says Diya Cherian (CAS ’24). “But my parents were immigrants, and didn’t get their citizenship until after I did, so for the first 16 years of my life I didn’t get to see them go to the polls or be civically engaged. I knew when I turned 18 and registered to vote that it was my chance to make my voice heard, and have a say in the politics and policies I’d heard them talking about when I was growing up.”
Diya Cherian (Photo by Jonathan King)
Now, as president of the Dean’s Service Honor Corps—the service wing of the CAS Presidential Honors Scholars program for students who have made commitments to pursuing research and completing an honors thesis—Diya has been leading a partnership with NYU Votes to encourage participation in the 2022 Midterm Elections. By providing voter education seminars and deputizing each of the DSHC’s 110 members to spread the word about registration deadlines, absentee and early voting, and the importance of making your voice heard, she’s contributing to the university-wide effort to increase the percentage of NYU students who exercise their right.
Diya is no stranger to volunteering—as a teenager in the small town of Yardley, Pennsylvania, she pursued service opportunities through school or church—but she credits the move to New York City and her network at NYU with helping her make an even bigger impact in the community. A global public health and biology major, Diya recently worked with rehabilitation medicine professor John-Ross Rizzo and art therapy professor Marygrace Berberian to create an interdisciplinary NYU research course studying the rehabilitative effect of therapeutic art in patients with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other neurologic disorders. The idea started as a proposal for a student club, but because of the licensing requirements around clinical interventions, Rizzo and Berberian suggested turning it into a for-credit opportunity with faculty supervision instead. (Rizzo is the course advisor, Berberian is professor of record, and Diya is both program coordinator and one of 15 students enrolled this semester.) “It’s kind of surreal pulling up my transcript and actually seeing my own class on there,” she says.
Diya has always dreamed of becoming a doctor to improve people’s lives, and cites Elizabeth Blackwell—one of the first female physicians in the US, and the subject of a favorite elementary school book report—and her mother, who worked in internal medicine in India, as early inspiration. But more recently, a job as an infection control specialist at the New Jersey Department of Health, where Diya has worked since her first year at NYU, has helped her refine her interest in the intersections between medicine and public health. She cites her real-world work on Legionnaires’ disease, Candida auris (an emerging fungal infection), and other pathogens with giving her new insight into a possible career path. “If we could better integrate the ideals of prevention and containment with the way that we cater to medicine on a patient-to-patient level, I think that would really take health care to the next level,” she says.
In addition to her other honors and responsibilities, Diya is also a member of NYU’s Global Public Health Emerging Leader Program and editor-in-chief of NYU’s Medical Dialogue Review, an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed student research publication. To say that it’s a busy schedule is an understatement, and so Diya keeps up with self-care through a routine of dance, yoga, and seeking out the best cappuccino in New York (Ralph’s Coffee is a current favorite). But when things get really tough? “I’m a stress baker,” Diya confesses. “Between the time that I take an exam and when I get the results back, I will have whipped up a dozen cookies.”
In addition to her other honors and responsibilities, Diya is also a member of NYU’s Global Public Health Emerging Leader Program and editor-in-chief of NYU’s Medical Dialogue Review, an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed student research publication. To say that it’s a busy schedule is an understatement, and so Diya keeps up with self-care through a routine of dance, yoga, and seeking out the best cappuccino in New York (Ralph’s Coffee is a current favorite). But when things get really tough? “I’m a stress baker,” Diya confesses. “Between the time that I take an exam and when I get the results back, I will have whipped up a dozen cookies.”