12 of the most impressive students at Harvard right now

Courtesy of Jordan DeGraaf

Counting household names like Sheryl Sandberg, Barack Obama, and Natalie Portman among its celebrated alumni, Harvard consistently remains one of the top colleges in the country.

But while the school continues to churn out impressive graduates, current students hold their own as well.

We tracked down 12 of Harvard's most remarkable undergraduates who go above and beyond, from developing new techniques for 3-D printing prosthetics to becoming an officer in the US Marines to promoting social activism through music.

Read on to meet 12 of the most impressive students at Harvard right now:

Alex Yang designed a way to 3-D print customized prosthetics for under $5.

Class of 2017

Hometown: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Major: Biomedical engineering

When Alex Yang gets frustrated, he doesn't just forget about it and move on — he finds a way to change things. One of Yang's biggest frustrations was the egregious cost of medical devices and prosthetics, especially in developing countries, which led him to develop an affordable method of manufacturing and fitting prosthetics for amputees.

Yang's method allows doctors to use any camera — including mobile phones — to capture about 100 photos of an amputee's residual limb, which are then stitched together to create a model. His software builds a socket that fits the limb, which can be 3-D printed in only a few hours for about $5 worth of materials.

Last summer, Yang took his design to Cambodia, which has the highest incidence of amputees per capita because of land mines, where he worked in a clinic fitting patients with prosthetics.

"To put things into perspective, it was taking clinicians in Cambodia several weeks to make a poorly fitting prosthetic," he says.

Yang also wants to make affordable technology available in classrooms. He won the 2015 Deutsche Bank Challenge for Klay, a low-cost education platform launched in Peru where children learn basic quantitative, deductive reasoning, and STEM skills through Play-Doh "games."

Yang's still got another year of school ahead of him, but after Harvard he hopes to commercialize some of the medical devices he's designed. Beyond that, he plans to earn a combined MD/MBA and put it to use redesigning medical technology.

Carolyn Pushaw will be an officer for the US Marines.

Class of 2016

Hometown: Malibu, California

Major: Human evolutionary biology

Carolyn Pushaw not only challenges herself academically at Harvard, but as a newly minted US Marine, she knows how to push herself physically and mentally as well.

Pushaw started in the US Navy ROTC her freshman year, but after observing the motivation and camaraderie of the Marines during a summer training session, she knew she wanted to switch. After years of early-morning workouts, late nights in the field, and weekends spent training — in addition to keeping up with a full course load — Pushaw got the chance to complete Officer Candidates School last summer. Described as "more demanding than any [training] you've experienced before," it prepares its graduates to enter the Marines as officers.

When she's not studying or training, Pushaw works as an EMT-Basic with CrimsonEMS, a volunteer group. She also participated in Harvard College in Asia, a cultural exchange program in which she hosted a Thai student at Harvard for a week and then spent a week in Bangkok.

Upon graduation in May, Pushaw will be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marines. She'll spend six months at The Basic School for officer training, followed by up to two years of flight school in Florida before serving as a Marine for at least six years.

"I am really looking forward to having the opportunity to serve my country and hopefully make a positive difference in the lives of the Marines I will lead," she says.

Harriet Kariuki provides Kenyan children with the supplies they need to succeed in school.

Class of 2016

Hometown: Kerugoya, Kenya

Major: Government

Growing up in Kenya, Harriet Kariuki had never even heard of Harvard before she applied. Neither of her parents went to high school, and she faced a choice: to work on the family tea farm or finish her education.

Kariuki chose the latter. But she never forgot the effort it took to get her there, including siphoning ink from a friend's pen so she could finish her schoolwork when she ran out of supplies. Her experiences inspired her to start Pens4Dreams alongside her roommate, Viona Shina Leboo. An outgrowth of her photography business, Kariuki Photography, Pens4Dreams provides school supplies to students in need in over 300 primary schools in Kenya. All the proceeds she earns from her photography go toward the initiative as well.

"These pens are not just pens but a source of motivation and something they can hold on to every time they lose hope in their pursuit to achieve their dreams," she says.

Harvard also sparked Kariuki's interest in language and travel. She currently speaks five languages — Korean, Japanese, Swahili, Kikuyu, and English — and has studied abroad in Japan, Korea, and China.

After graduation, Kariuki will head back to China to pursue a master's in public policy and international relations at Peking University through the Yenching fellowship, with a focus on Sino-African relations. In the long term, she eventually wants to return to Kenya and change it for the better.