The Asian Pacific Alumni (APA) of Notre Dame has selected four graduating seniors as the inaugural recipients of the José Eduardo Valdes Impact Award. The awardees were nominated by their peers for their outstanding leadership, service, and commitment to the Asian Pacific Islander community at Notre Dame.
The Valdes Impact Award (formerly the APA Student Leadership Award) commemorates José Eduardo Valdes y Diaz of Manila, Philippines. According to the APA, Valdes enrolled at Notre Dame in 1904 as one of the first pensionado students. The Pensionado Act of 1903 provided government scholarships for qualified Filipino students to study in the United States. The Philippines was a U.S. colony at the time, and the act sought to train future leaders of the country. Valdes earned his bachelor of laws in 1906, and the APA credits him as being Notre Dame's first Asian graduate.
Jeremy Dela Cruz ’15, MSF ’19, APA chair, presented plaques to the inaugural Valdes Honorees on May 17 during the Asian and Pacific Islander Recognition Ceremony. Watch a video of the award presentations.
2025 Valdes Honorees
Bianca Feix
Major(s): Neuroscience and behavior
Minor(s): Asian studies and science and patient advocacy
Feix served as president of the Asian American Association during her senior year, having previously served as vice president and secretary. She also had leadership positions in the Filipino American Student Organization and the Chinese Culture Society.
She was a student assistant at the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies as well as a resident assistant for Pasquerilla West Hall and a counselor for the DNA Learning Center. She also worked as a research assistant in the Attention, Memory, and Perception Lab and as a teaching assistant and tutor for the Department of Biology. Traveling around the world to take part in research opportunities, Feix explored resiliency and social justice in Fukushima, Japan, as part of the ND Resilience, Recovery, and Redemption project and joined an archaeological dig in Gác, Poland, searching for lost medieval villages with the Slavia Foundation.
Luke Gil
Major(s): Film and studio art
Minor(s): Korean
Gil began his college career as an architecture student before deciding to pursue his lifelong dream of animation by switching to a film and studio art major.
As a student, he was very active in the Asian community at Notre Dame, starting with his participation in Asian American Association’s Asian Allure event and other cultural showcases during his freshman year. He moved from being on the stage to behind the scenes as director for the Filipino American Student Organization’s spring signature event Fiestang and for Seoul’d Out, the Korean Student Association showcase—helping spread the beauty of Asian and Pacific Islander culture and heritage to students of all backgrounds. He also served as event coordinator, vice president, and marketing director for these clubs during his time on campus.
Gil leveraged his arts background as the marketing lead for other clubs as well, creating many designs to help promote events to wider audiences.
Brian Johny
Major(s): Biological sciences and studio art
With a passion for both the life sciences and the arts, Johny’s interdisciplinary background explores how these fields intersect to inform and enrich one another. In the O’Tousa Lab, he studied the visual phototransduction cascade in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, focusing on protein movement within mosquito retina histology.
Johny served on the executive boards of both the Asian American Association and the South Asian Student Association. He led numerous cultural and community initiatives on campus, including performances as a Bharatanatyam dancer through NDeepam, Notre Dame’s first classical Indian dance group. Johny co-founded NDeepam to celebrate and preserve the beauty of this ancient art form. In addition, he co-founded and co-directed Jazba, Notre Dame’s first-ever South Asian cultural showcase, which featured dance, music, poetry, and performance art from across India, Pakistan, and the broader South Asian diaspora.
Lauren Lee
Major(s): Neuroscience and behavior and pre-health
Minor(s): Korean
Lee studied neuroscience with a supplementary pre-health major. After meeting and taking classes taught by Korean faculty in the East Asian Languages and Cultures department, she decided to minor in Korean and study abroad in Seoul, South Korea, during the fall semester of her junior year.
An active member of the Korean Student Association (KSA), her involvement began by joining a traditional drumming group called samul nori (사물놀이) and taking part in a small group family (가족). She later directed the KSA annual showcase, Seoul’d Out, and eventually led the club as its president. She also worked as a research assistant for the Cognition, Learning, and Development Lab and as a tutor with TutorND. Beyond her work and activities on campus, she spent time volunteering for local hospitals and clinics, staying active, and cooking.
Originally published by at weareall.nd.edu on May 27, 2025.