Meucci Ilunga

Meucci Watchman Ilunga, a member of the Deer Spring and Red Running Into the Water clans, is graduating summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry. Meucci is from the Kinłichíí (Kinlichee) community, a small village in northern Arizona and one of the Navajo Nation’s 110 chapters. Drawing from the experiences of his mother, a former sheepherder, and his father, an immigrant from central Africa, Meucci has long hoped to live up to the example of service that both his parents set for him.

Meucci has been a volunteer peer mentor for Native American students at Carrillo Magnet School, and a dog-walker and kitten-socializer at the Humane Society of Southern Arizona. At the University, Meucci devoted time to the Department of Astronomy’s MESCIT (Mentorship and Education in Science for Tucson) tutoring program, served as a departmental ambassador for the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and led efforts within his tribe to revitalize his culture through new technologies, such as machine learning and geographic information system technologies. In addition to being committed to service, Meucci is an avid student of the biological sciences. He first started doing research in the lab of Christina Laukaitis and Robert Karn in the University of Arizona Cancer Center, then later in the lab of Michael D.L. Johnson in the Department of Immunobiology under the National Institutes of Health Maximizing Access to Research Careers program. Additionally, Meucci spent a summer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studying computational protein techniques in the lab of Amy Keating.

Meucci has received many awards during his time at the University of Arizona. These distinctions include earning the Navajo Nation’s prestigious Chief Manuelito scholarship for academic excellence, the Wildcat Excellence Award, and the American Indian College Fund’s Full Circle Scholarship. Upon graduation, Meucci plans to pursue a doctorate in the field of synthetic biology, hopefully managing to bring the Diné (Navajo) idea of "Hozhó" (Diné wellness philosophy) along with him.