Koushik Kasanagottu, University of Alabama

Koushik Kasanagottu, a junior majoring in biology on the Pre-Med track at the University of Alabama, leads University efforts to fight diabetes in Alabama’s rural areas. Devoting many hours to the University’s Project Diabetes Intensive Education Team, he has organized seminars for students by experts in the field of diabetes, nutrition, exercise and stress management and scheduled diabetes educational sessions in several Alabama counties throughout the Alabama Black Belt region. He also hosted the University’s first World Diabetes Day, and volunteered with Southeastern Diabetes Education Services to help raise funds for its annual summer camp for Type 1 Diabetics. Koushik’s vision and his passion for helping others has developed an extraordinary interdisciplinary movement of undergraduate and graduate students on the UA campus, all coming together to advance the opportunities for diabetes education, diabetes awareness, and intergroup coordination with the University, the greater Tuscaloosa area, and communities of great need throughout the state of Alabama.