Kahleb Graham, pictured in front of the statue of Galileo Galilei outside The Carnegie in Oakland, is an unusual hybrid: a religious studies major with a passion for science. Although Galileo clashed with the Catholic Church on the issue of whether the earth moved around the sun, he was also devoutly religious, famously citing Cardinal Baronius: “The Bible was written to show us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.” Graham likewise sees no inherent conflict between the two realms. “You can’t really reconcile the fundamental difference between something that’s based on faith and something that’s based on proof and evidence,” he says.

In the remote Ghanaian village of Jukwa last summer, Kahleb [Kah-leeb] Graham and fellow Pitt students helped to build a library—despite swarms of biting insects, dubious plumbing, termites that marched across their books and papers, even malaria.

“Kahleb was one of the main reasons things held together,” says Pitt Professor of English David Brumble, who taught the Ghana service-learning course, which combined travel writing with the library construction. “He’s a big, strong kid with an unassuming leader’s personality. He made it clear, from the moment we landed in Ghana, that he was in love with the whole experience.”

Even after Graham and two other students came down with malaria, they pressed on. Graham even took “considerable interest” in his experience with malaria, Brumble recalls, because of what it taught him about health care in rural Ghana.

“All of these students got on well with the people of Jukwa,” Brumble says, “but none better than Kahleb. There was no strain at all in his relationships with the villagers, no self-consciousness about crossing cultural divides.”

The warm, earnest 21-year-old Graham is committed to serving the community here at home, too. Today, Graham will receive the Bachelor of Arts degree in religious studies during Pitt’s 2005 Commencement ceremony. He plans to continue his education in medical school, possibly becoming an orthopaedic surgeon.

Such high academic achievement isn’t unusual among Pitt undergraduates. Where Graham stands out, his professors and mentors agree, is in devoting so much time and work to helping others achieve great things, as well.

From an early age, Graham was determined to attend college—an unusual goal for a kid in a mostly African American neighborhood in Prince George’s County, Md. (near Washington, D.C.), where Graham grew up, he says. But Graham knew that a college degree was required for any of the career paths he dreamed of pursuing, from veterinary medicine to law to engineering.

Graham’s father, a physician recruiter for a healthcare company, and mother, a financial planner for a mortgage company, pushed him to succeed. “Growing up,” says Graham, “I knew a lot of people who didn’t have the emphasis on education, whether they weren’t self-motivated or their parents accepted mediocrity. My parents never accepted mediocrity. They always told me: ‘You’re going to college.’”

His father encouraged Graham’s passion for science by assigning him to write reports on encyclopedia excerpts. Later, his parents saw to it that Graham attended a high school with a specialized science and technology curriculum.

He decided on a career in medicine, and when it came time to choose a college, three major factors attracted Graham to Pitt: the full-tuition University Honors Challenge Scholarship he was offered here, Pittsburgh’s highly rated hospitals, and Pitt’s Quest program for high-achieving underrepresented students in math and science.

Through the Quest program, Graham participated in diabetes research with David Kelley, professor of medicine in Pitt’s Department of Endocrinology, during the summer before his freshman year. Graham was drawn to diabetes research because the disease runs in his family.

Later, as an upperclassman, Graham would be named a mentor to younger students in the Quest program “because of his maturity and level headedness,” says Gail Austin, associate director of the Academic Resource Center and Quest program coordinator.

But during his first term at Pitt, Graham wasn’t feeling very mature or level headed. He was taking biology classes as part of his premedical coursework and doing well in them, but he didn’t want to commit to being a biology major—or any other kind of major. “For about a semester, I had a new major every week,” he says.

Coming from a deeply Christian family, Graham is strongly religious. As a child, he was once asked by his father whom he loved more, his father or God.

“You,” he remembers telling his father.

“No, wrong answer,” his father corrected him. “You always put God first.”

Now, in college and anxious about his choice of major, Graham prayed for guidance: “God, where do you want me to go?”

Ultimately, his faith helped inspire him to major in religious studies, and he is glad he did. “I wanted to major in something that would have the same meaning to me at 81 as it did at 18,” he explains. “It helped me know exactly why I believe what I believe. It’s actually helped strengthen my faith.”

His transition to college life was less than easy in other areas as well. When Graham first moved here from the Washington, D.C., area, he had trouble adjusting to Pittsburgh’s slower pace and proportionately lower number of African Americans, especially in leadership positions. He sought them out, however, doing research with Dwight Heron, who is an assistant professor of radiation oncology in Pitt’s School of Medicine and, as a Black physician, a role model for Graham.

Graham’s other Pitt role models have included Laurel Roberts, a lecturer in the Department of Biological Sciences and an African American, and Robert Connamacher, outreach coordinator for Pitt’s medical school, more commonly known as “Dr. Bob.”

“When you look around and see an African American person who’s a great, highly respected professor who’s successful, you think, ‘I can do this,” says Graham. About Connamacher, who is White, Graham says: “He really, fully expressed to me the importance of being of service to the community. He’s dedicated his whole life to helping people, and I’ve learned so much from him.”

Proving he had taken Dr. Bob’s lessons to heart, Graham has tutored and mentored children at Rodman Baptist Church and Peabody High School, both in East Liberty. He also spent a spring break teaching K-12 students in the Detroit public schools about alternatives to violence, through the Save Our Sons and Daughters program.

Especially in inner cities, “a lot of times all that kids see are the negative things,” Graham says. “They don’t see people who look like them, especially men, excelling in other areas.”

Middle school years are a crucial time for kids, he notes. “Their only world is their neighborhood, so their scope of what opportunities are out there is limited. That’s why I think it’s important to go into those schools and say, ‘You can do it; this is what’s out there.”

Graham was also a role model for students at Pitt, where, in addition to the aforementioned Quest program, he served as a mentor in the FOCUS (Facilitating Opportunities and Climate for Underrepresented Students) program for incoming underrepresented freshmen; a Pitt Pathfinder; and president of the Premedical Organization for Minority Students (POMS). Graham also sang in Pitt’s gospel choir, Some of God’s Children, and was inducted into the Golden Key International Honor Society.

In March, Graham spent an alternative spring break with fellow POMS members in rural Logan, W.Va. (See Alternative Spring Break.) There, they performed blood pressure tests, took blood and glucose readings, checked urine samples, and gave health advice to elderly residents. The POMS group also delivered inspirational talks to two groups of West Virginia high school students.

“I am really proud of the work we did down there,” says Graham. “It made learning science and going through the trials and tribulations of trying to become a doctor seem worth it.”

“The thing that most impresses me about Kahleb is his humanity,” says the Pitt Academic Resource Center’s Austin. “He’s the kind of person I think all students should be. He has contributed to the college community and the community at large, and I’m quite impressed by that. Kahleb would be a role model for any student, irrespective of background.”

To some Philadelphia eighth graders, Graham will be a role model this fall, when he will begin teaching math through the Teach for America program. He plans to complete the two-year program before attending medical school.

“It’s going to be a challenge, but I’m looking forward to it,” he says. “I’ll be responsible for the education for a lot of young kids. That’s really important, and I don’t take it lightly.”

Graham’s older brother, Rasheem, now works in Seattle. Another brother, Marcus, will graduate from high school this year, and a sister, Maya, will enter the eighth grade this fall. Graham says his younger siblings help to motivate him to work with younger students.

“When I came here to Pitt, I wanted to be an example for my sister and younger brother, and I miss them a lot. So, when I get an opportunity to help children their age, I have to do it.”

Graham speaks of his family with obvious pride and gratitude, and credits them with his success. He calls his mother “the rock,” adding, “All the strength that I have, I know I derive it directly from her.”