Olivia Tull on the Columbus campus.
You helped Olivia find her audacity at Ohio State
A scholarship, a bracelet business and a childhood friend lost to cancer put her on the path to medical school.
Growing up in Cincinnati, Olivia Tull admired Ohio State from a distance. When she visited her older brother on the Columbus campus, something clicked.
“I remember thinking I can really see myself here,” she says. “The collegiate energy, the STEM opportunities, the proximity to local hospitals — it all felt right.” Learning she had earned a scholarship made her feel certain.
Three weeks before her first semester, she changed her major from speech and hearing science to a pre-medicine path she once thought was beyond her reach. Support from scholarship donors changed that. It gave her, as she puts it, “the audacity to just try.” In May, she completed a bachelor's degree from the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.
Send congrats to recent grad Olivia!
You can share congratulations with Olivia right after her walk across the commencement stage. Let her know you’re celebrating her next success, in medical school and beyond.
Olivia always wanted to do something meaningful for others. In 2019, as a high school sophomore, she started a small bracelet-making business and began donating half her proceeds to causes close to her heart. Over the next few years, she ran month-long charitable campaigns, donating to COVID-19 relief, the NAACP and local food pantries.
This community-minded action caught the scholarship committee’s attention. “I didn’t think my bracelet business would matter much to anyone, but my mom urged me to write the essay and at least apply,” she says. “I’m so glad I did.”
Olivia conducting cancer research.
On campus, Olivia threw herself into opportunities her scholarship made possible. Because so many pre-med milestones — shadowing, volunteering, research — are unpaid, the financial support freed her to pursue them. For instance, as a freshman, she studied the antigen presentation cascade in cancer cells that makes immunotherapies more effective.
This work is deeply personal to Olivia, who lost one of her childhood friends to pediatric brain cancer. “Every time I step in the lab, I feel more connected to her,” Olivia says. “I know she would be proud of the work I am doing.”
She has co-authored two manuscripts, completed a full-time summer research fellowship through Ohio State’s Cancer Research Experience for the Advancement and Training of Emerging Scientists (CREATES) program and presented her thesis work at the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum.
Olivia and her mentors, after defending her thesis.
“Support from donors like you gave me confidence to know that someone believes in me. That’s translated into everything I’ve done at Ohio State.”
After graduation, Olivia is staying in Columbus to attend The Ohio State University College of Medicine.
Olivia hopes to build a medical practice centered on community, equity and continued learning. Ohio State and scholarship donors gave her the foundation — and the audacity — to believe she could.
As Olivia prepares for her next steps, she is grateful for the foundation of an Ohio State education.
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