2010 POINT SCHOLARS

Kay Adam

Wells Fargo Point Scholar

Augsburg College

Economics

Kay is a Minnesota transplant after emigrating from Kenya as a Somali Refugee in 2004. In the short time that he has stayed in the United States, he has been involved in social justice issues almost from day one after experiencing significant personal marginalization. After getting hired to work as a janitor as a 16 year old at a GLBT youth center, Kay went on to lead efforts in finding stable housing for his peers with a piece of legislation that raised significant monies for local youth shelters. In addition to his community organizing for Homeless Youth Initiatives, he is a leader at his school's GSA. Kay Attends Augsburg College, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is studying Quantitative Economics with minors in Mathematics and in Communication Studies. He is an Active Amateur Photographer and two of his photo's ended up being the post card's for the Minnesota Runaway & Homeless Youth Act, of which he worked on. Kay hopes to go to graduate school for either Statistics or Economics. He plans to use quantitative tools to help inform policy making at the federal and state level. Kay is interested in extending the privileges afforded to him, to others who haven’t been fortunate enough to obtain higher education. Kay speaks three languages and also hopes to use his international experiences to inform policy making. Currently, he is interested in issues surrounding Health Policy, Security Policy and International Economic Development. In addition to his thesis on Health Policy being accepted for an oral presentation at a National Undergraduate Research Conference, Kay is a McNair Scholar, Martin Olav Sabo Scholar, A Soul Essence Community Leadership Award winner, a North Star Stem Scholar and  Pfund Scholar for both his academic excellence and his volunteerism. He is currently in his junior year actively preparing himself for entry into a PhD program.