When Joanna Louis-Ugbo takes the stage as the 2026 Emory College class orator, there will be no shortage of friendly faces in the crowd of fellow graduates.
Some will be connections from her pre-orientation program, Welcoming Interfaith and Spiritual Exploration (WISE), or her first-year residence hall. Others will be people who followed her guidance as co-director of Volunteer Emory’s Alternative Breaks program.
Many will simply be classmates whom Louis-Ugbo welcomed with a smile and conversation whenever they crossed paths in clubs, classes or on campus. Her speech will remind them that her strength, and theirs, comes from weaving their lives together.
“I’ve seen the ways friends show up for each other and the way people show up for me,” Louis-Ugbo says. “It can be easy to believe that they don’t owe anything to anyone, but we do.
“Humans are meant to be in connection with each other,” she adds. “Sometimes that means taking care of people when it’s not super convenient for you, but it helps your village thrive.”
A cohort of students, faculty and administrators selected Louis-Ugbo to speak at the Emory College diploma ceremony on Monday, May 11, following a rigorous review process that weighs student leadership, speaking ability and contributions to Emory.
Tackling the “it takes a village” proverb is a natural fit for Louis-Ugbo, a metro Atlanta native who is graduating with high honors in German studies and biology. Her parents left their entire families behind in Nigeria when they moved to the U.S. to be a lab technologist and surgeon.
Her community became the aunts, uncles and cousins from church. That none are technically related to her did not diminish their support, a concept she replicated the moment she arrived at Emory.
“Joanna is passionate and dedicated and definitely has a presence that pulls people in,” says Liz Martin, the program coordinator at the Emory Office of Spiritual and Religious Life who connected with Louis-Ugbo as a WISE student and eventual peer mentor. Younger students refer to Louis-Ugbo as their WISE mom and grandma.
“I’ve never had a student so dedicated to making sure every student felt welcomed and comfortable,” adds Martin. “She has been a big part of building a sense that WISE is a family that sticks with you.”
Generating that community was a crucial ingredient to making sure Louis-Ugbo felt comfortable exploring at Emory. She originally planned to major in pre-law, thinking she would enjoy health care policy. Then biology courses with professors Edward Nam and Jaap de Roode captured her interest.
She switched to a pre-med pathway after working as an optometrist technician and conducting lab research with David Archer at the School of Medicine. That experience included work on sickle cell disease, a condition that affects many in her family.
She also served as de Roode’s learning assistant for two years, going all in on his instructional classroom skits.
“It can be kind of embarrassing or silly, but she really committed to it and made it a fun atmosphere where everyone felt like they belonged,” de Roode says. “Joanna is always up for something fun.”
Louis-Ugbo was similarly game for trying something new with her study of German. Initially meant to fulfill her language requirement, her fascination with the culture and opportunity to participate in departmental study abroad courses in Austria and Germany led her to declare it a minor and, eventually, a second major.
Then came her commitment to plan events for the German Culture Club, where she served as president while completing an honors thesis analyzing the state of Black German activism through podcasts.
“I can’t think of a student who embodies the liberal arts better, completing a sciences major and humanities major out of pure passion,” says Didem Uca, assistant professor of German studies. “She has this fearlessness about her, where she pursues big projects, and because of how brilliant and multi-talented she is, she thrives.”
Louis-Ugbo is quick to credit her village — professors, staff and friends — for making it possible. She is especially grateful for close friends Allison Chen and Rohan Sinha.
The trio met their first year on campus, when Chen, who grew up in Taiwan, was living in the U.S. for the first time and Sinha was getting his bearings in the South after growing up in California. Louis-Ugbo immediately began taking the pair to her favorite spots in Atlanta, where they bonded over meals, movies and concerts.
“If there is a coffee café in Atlanta, we’ve been to it,” says Chen, a nursing major. “Joanna reminds me that there are opportunities to live life to the fullest everywhere.”
Sinha, an economics major, was surprised at how much Louis-Ugbo was willing to do for her friends, from inviting them to holiday meals to even letting them keep their cars at her home over the summer.
“She showed me how to create community,” Sinha says. “Because of her, now I realize that sometimes you have to be the person who takes that first step or even the first 10 steps for people to see that you’re in their corner.”
The trio will have another year to keep building their village in Atlanta. Sinha is pursuing a master’s degree in finance at Emory, while Chen has accepted a job working for Emory Healthcare. Louis-Ugbo is taking a gap year to work in research before heading to medical school.
She wants her fellow graduates to remember that kind of support and comfort as they leave campus.
“The world needs community, especially right now,” Louis-Ugbo says. “We had such an amazingly strong four years at Emory. Now, it’s time for us to take that love and care and show it to others beyond Emory.”