About Me

Profile

About:

I grew up in McKinney, Texas, but I never felt at home in the Lone Star State until I moved to Austin. Always lamenting the fact that the Dallas area lacks outdoor recreation and interesting people, choosing to come to UT has ended up being the best decision I’ve ever made.

My parents practically raised their children outside and forever instilled a love of and respect for nature in my brother, my sister and me. As a result, I have a passion for being outdoors and living in a way that preserves it. A few of my favorite things include spending the day on a picnic blanket at Zilker park with friends, people watching in a new place, backpacking with my dad and brother in New Mexico, the first cool breeze of fall, and writing letters to my friends who live far away (or in my own apartment, but we pretend that we have an excuse).

I’m not all camping and granola though; I am an artist, a reader, a runner, a dancer, and a proud owner of a kitten named Olive. I’m a fourth year studio art major hoping to pursue a career that facilitates and serves as a catalyst to the arts. I’m involved with a few student organizations on campus including the Campus Environmental Center, Center Space Project, and INMATERIAL, I’m an intern at teh Visual Arts Center, and last but certainly not least, I'm biking to Alaska with the best group of passionate students I have ever met to fight cancer!

Why I Ride

I ride for my grandfather Bill Hann, grandmother Marian Hann, and grandfather Paul Wadsworth. My grandparents were hard working people who did the best that they could and enjoyed the simple things. They worked diligently to put as much food on the table as possible to provide for their families, but that most often meant eating lots of beef, bread, and butter. They had little time to devote to exercise and all smoked cigarettes. Bill Hann was a Master Technical Sergeant in the Air Force, who worked to maintain large engines and transport aircraft, as well as a farmer during his life and was exposed to many carcinogenic chemicals such as DDT.

Unfortunately, I only have fond memories of sitting in their laps as a young child; they all died before I was a teenager. Bill Hann: Pancreatic Cancer, Marian Hann: Lung Cancer, and Paul Wadsworth: Prostate Cancer. I believe that their lifestyle played a huge role in their diagnoses and, as a result, have made the spread of knowledge my personal objective in the fight against cancer. Had the research been available at the time, perhaps they would have been alive to see me graduate high school, start a career, and watch me walk down the aisle.

Having so many family members lose their battle with cancer before I had the chance to build a relationship with them has motivated me to try to live as healthy a lifestyle as possible in order to prevent myself and others from having the same fate. So, as I learn more about the dietary and lifestyle choices that lead to cancer, I hope that by educating people I can play a small part in preventing a diagnosis altogether before treatment is even needed. Whether it's eating less ice cream (a huge struggle for me), getting active again, or being cautious with the chemicals we expose ourselves to, the everyday decisions we make have an incredible impact on our health in the long run. With cancer looming over our heads and in our genes already, we can't afford to be careless with our bodies.