At San Francisco State University’s May 21 graduation ceremony, each student who walked across the stage for a diploma had taken a personal journey — celebrated that day by beaming family members and, hopefully, culminating in newly opened doors and career opportunities.
For two Russian-Jewish immigrants receiving top honors from the university, that trip was long and at times arduous. They agreed it was also more than worth it.
Maria Gershenovich, whose family’s experience with persecution inspired her to pursue a degree in criminal justice, and Aleksandr (Alex) Pankov, a double major in statistics and applied mathematics, were two of just 10 students chosen (from 8,132 graduates) to receive a symbolic honors hood at the commencement ceremony.
Gershenovich was born in 1990 in Samara, Russia, a city on the Volga River. She began gymnastics at age 3 and started ballroom dance at 9; at 14 she was invited to join a professional dance studio in Seattle.
“My family had always wanted me to move from Russia,” she said, noting that her parents — who had faced anti-Semitism — knew life would be better for her elsewhere. “We were already thinking about where I could move after high school, and my mom had some connections in Germany and Italy … but then dancing worked.”
She moved by herself to the United States in June 2005 to attend the dance school, continuing to dance competitively for three years and winning two national titles. After deciding she wanted a different career path, Gershenovich moved at 17 to the Bay Area to live with her boyfriend, continuing her education at Capuchino High School in San Bruno and the College of San Mateo before transferring to SFSU.
Though she entered undecided on a major, a criminal justice course she took early on caught her attention. “It was a class on the Constitution that first did it,” she said. “I’ve always been interested in the law, and I was taking care of my immigration work at the time and helping my boyfriend get his visa because my English was better than his … and I realized this was something I was good at.” Internships with a superior court judge, a criminal defense attorney and the district attorney’s office confirmed her passion for law.
Gershenovich, who turns 21 in August, will start law school at either U.C. Berkeley or U.C. Hastings — she hasn’t decided which — in September.
Pankov was born in Moldova, and his family moved to the U.S. when he was 6. He grew up in San Francisco, attending Hebrew Academy, where he discovered his love of calculus and statistics. “My family was always very encouraging,” he said, adding that his parents impressed upon him how fortunate he was to be educated in this country.
Pankov, who enrolled at SFSU in 2007, said he was grateful to work with some of the most respected statisticians in the field — professors who encouraged his enthusiasm for applied mathematics. “I know I was really lucky to be able to choose my own path,” he said, acknowledging the generous support he received as an undergraduate from the University Presidential Scholars Program. Internships with NASA and Kaiser Permanente rounded out his experience as he continued research with Javier Arsuaga, an assistant professor of mathematics at SFSU, on how genes change due to tumors and cancer.
Pankov — who also was student commencement speaker — will continue working at Kaiser over the summer and plans to attend UCSF in the fall for a doctorate in bioinformatics.
As for the graduation ceremony and the honor of being named hood recipients (Gershenovich representing the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Pankov for the College of Science and Engineering), both graduates said that, thinking back to where they began, it was all a bit surreal.
“Being up there on stage, singled out by the dean?” Gershenovich said, laughing. “It was wonderful.”