2026 Honorees
Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley
ASU MLK Community Servant-Leadership Award recipient
Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley supports 13,000 youths a year in over 690 locations in the state of Arizona. Through their programming for students, they focus on four priority outcomes: Academic Success, Good Character and Leadership, Healthy Lifestyles, and Career Pathways and Workforce Readiness. By giving children, teens and young adults access to social, academic and workforce opportunities, BGCAZ has and continues to successfully support youth in the AZ community.
CEO and President of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley, Marcia L. Mintz, will be accepting this award on behalf of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley.
Esther Low
ASU MLK Student Servant-Leadership Award recipient
Esther Low is a fourth-year Biomedical Engineering and Global Health student at Arizona State University, Barrett Honors College. A first-generation graduate student aspirant, she is deeply committed to advancing women’s health through translational biomedical research, service, and mentorship. Esther has extensive research experience spanning cancer immunotherapeutics, microfluidic point-of-care devices, biomedical ethics, reproductive telehealth privacy, and motor rehabilitation. She has contributed to multiple labs, including Dr. Karen Anderson’s immunology lab and Dr. Jon Tilburt’s biomedical ethics group at Mayo Clinic, producing conference papers, encyclopedia articles, and an honors thesis recognized with the 2025 SHESC Undergraduate Research Award. Her work has been shared through 4 oral presentations and 13 poster presentations nationally, including Harvard’s National Collegiate Research Conference. Beyond academics, Esther is a leader, serving as President of Sun Devil Swipes, Chair of the SBHSE Undergraduate Advisory Board, and Fulton Relations Director for BMES, where she helped her chapter win the 2025 BMES Outstanding Chapter Industry Program Award. Combining scientific rigor with a deep commitment to service, she represents a new generation of scholar-leaders who merge research excellence with advocacy for equity in education and healthcare.
Esther has been recognized with numerous awards for her academic excellence, leadership, and service. In April 2025, she received the School of Human Evolution and Social Change Undergraduate Research Award for her honors thesis, Health Literacy Through An Educability Framework: A Path to Global Health Synergy. She was also awarded the Ajamie Scholarship (2025) and the David R. Buchanan Leadership Scholarship for three consecutive years (2023-2025), highlighting her leadership and service commitment. Esther was nominated for the American Red Cross Humanitarian Services Presidential Award for Excellence (2024) for her work supporting national behavioral health facilitator training. She has consistently been named to the Dean’s List (2022-2025), maintaining a 3.95 GPA. Through her organizational leadership, she contributed to the ASU Biomedical Engineering Society winning the 2025 BMES Outstanding Chapter Industry Program Award and ASU’s Pitchfork Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Student Organization. She was also selected for the Leadership Scholarship Program and Provost Scholarship (2024-2026), which support top performing students with demonstrated campus impact. These recognitions collectively reflect her ability to balance academic distinction, innovative research, and sustained leadership that benefits both her university and broader communities.
Esther intends to pursue a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences, specializing in immunology with a focus on women’s health. Her long-term goal is to become a university professor and principal investigator leading a women’s health research lab. In this role, she plans to advance translational research that bridges basic science and clinical application, particularly addressing inequities in diagnostics and treatments for women. Beyond scientific discovery, Esther is committed to mentorship, intending to guide future students just as she was supported by her mentors. She also envisions continuing service initiatives addressing food insecurity, health literacy, and refugee health education, leveraging her leadership experiences with Sun Devil Swipes, REACT, and the Red Cross. Importantly, she plans to carry her service-first ethos into academia by fostering inclusive labs and classrooms where students from diverse backgrounds feel supported. Her professional trajectory is designed to merge research excellence with sustained community engagement, ensuring that her contributions extend beyond scholarship into direct societal impact. Ultimately, Esther’s vision is not only to advance science but to use education, mentorship, and service as tools for improving health equity and empowering underserved communities locally and globally.
Dr. Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez
ASU MLK Faculty Servant-Leadership Award recipient
Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez is an Associate Professor of English and Assistant Vice Provost of the ASU Polytechnic campus. In her role as Assistant Vice Provost, she works on the strategic implementation of ASU’s goals at the Poly campus by providing campus-level engagement to advance Poly priorities. She supports enrollment growth, community building, and student success, as well as communicating Poly’s contributions to the ASU Charter and fostering relationships with external stakeholders. Prior to this role, Fonseca-Chávez served as the Associate Dean of Inclusion and Student Success for the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts from 2021-2025.
Fonseca-Chávez’s is the author of Colonial Legacies in Chicana/o Literature and Culture: Looking through the Kaleidoscope (2020) with the University of Arizona Press. She is the co-editor of four books, including La Plonqui: The Literary Life and Work of Margarita Cota-Cárdenas (2023) and meXicana Roots and Routes: Listening to People, Places, and Pasts (2025). She is the co-author of Hispanics in Concho (2025). She is the co-editor of the BorderVisions book series with the University of Arizona Press, a series which publishes cutting-edge research on borderlands studies.
Fonseca-Chávez’s current research focuses on understanding how rural communities in the southwest United States narrate a sense of belonging through economic migrations. She is working on a new book that explores the ways that residents of Concho, Arizona hold the memory of a community that has long been described as a ghost town.
At ASU, Fonseca-Chávez teaches undergraduate courses in English, Interdisciplinary Studies, Liberal Studies, and History. She is an affiliate faculty member of the School of Transborder Studies, the School of International Letters and Cultures and the Department of English at ASU Tempe.
Fonseca-Chávez co-directs the Following the Manito Trail project, which looks at the Hispanic New Mexican, or Manito, diaspora from the mid-19th century to the present. The Following the Manito Trail team has produced three documentaries, five museum exhibits, and has published numerous articles and book chapters. Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez and Rafael Martínez serve as the founders and inaugural co-directors of the Latinx Oral History Lab at the ASU Polytechnic campus.
Dr. Laura Dicochea
ASU MLK Staff Servant-Leadership Award recipient
Laura Dicochea earned her PhD from the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. Her research specializes in transborder studies, focusing on the past and present educational experiences of transnational and transfronterize students in higher education in Mexico and the United States. Laura critically examines their transnational movement and practices across borders, as well as the educational challenges and opportunities they face while navigating both educational systems.
Through her research, she informs language, educational, and institutional policies. She also provides recommendations for the development of programs and initiatives that promote the academic success of transnational and transfronterize students in K-12 and higher education in Mexico and the United States.
In addition to her PhD, Laura also has received her MA in Spanish Linguistics from ASU, her BAE in Secondary Education (Spanish) from ASU, and her Translation Certificate (Business, Legal, Medical) from University of Arizona.