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When Amaya Simoni-Walters ’25 learned she won a Commencement award, she was off campus—2,700 miles away, in fact. 

After graduating early in December 2024, she moved back home to Washington, DC, and started a new job as a researcher at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The morning of April 17, Simoni-Walters was whipping up some breakfast before work when she got an email. “You are invited to the Commencement Award Ceremony!” the subject line read.

Simoni-Walters was thrilled, albeit a tad perplexed. “I FaceTimed my parents and told them, ‘Hi, I just won an award, but I don’t know what it is yet,” she says. After corresponding with the Provost’s Office, she received another surprise. She had actually won two. 

A Biology major, Simoni-Walters is the recipient of this year’s Arthur S. Campbell Award, presented by the School of Science to one outstanding student. In addition, she received the De La Salle Award, which recognizes the graduating senior with the highest record for academic and general excellence. Alongside Valedictorian, it’s the most significant honor the College offers.

Learning she won both awards was “shocking,” Simoni-Walters says. “But honestly, it just made me think of all the people who helped me succeed at Saint Mary’s."

 Lawn and Lab

Simoni-Walters certainly made the most of her time as a Gael. After transferring to SMC as a freshman in the spring of 2022, she joined the Women’s Soccer team, playing for three years. When she stepped away from college soccer after moving home, she realized the love is still there. In fact, in July, when she heads to New Mexico State University to pursue a master’s in Biological Sciences, she’ll lace up her cleats again, this time for the NMSU Aggies. 

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“To be able to go play soccer and do the master’s program is going to be really awesome,” she says.

For Simoni-Walters, the upcoming graduate program—and her current work at NIH—are points of arrival on a path that began at Saint Mary’s. In the spring of 2023, she started conducting research with Karen Ruff, a professor of Biochemistry at SMC. Together, they studied RNA structural biology nd how altering and mutating RNA could impact gene expression.  

“It’s all really fascinating to me,” Simoni-Walters shared in an SMC NewsCenter interview in 2024. “I definitely think I want to do lab work when I graduate.” That goal is now a reality. At NIH, she is conducting research at the National Cancer Institute with microbiologist Susan Gottesman, investigating how small RNA regulates the genetic coding of the E. coli bacteria. 

Working at NIH, she acknowledges, runs in the family. Her mother, Karina Walters, is the director of the Institute’s Tribal Health Research Office (and a former SMC commencement speaker), while her other mother, Jane M. Simoni, is the Director of the Office for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. Walters works on another campus, but Simoni-Walters gets to see Simoni often. “We try to have lunch at least once a week,” she says. 

After completing her master’s at NMSU, she intends to continue to a PhD program and study ecology and evolutionary biology. Her scientific passions are inseparable from her Indigenous heritage, Simoni-Walters explains. A descendant of the Athabaskan and Yupik tribes, her ultimate hope is to “bring my unique Native perspective to modern science by braiding experimental data and experimental procedure with Indigenous knowledge of the land and the environment,” as she put it in 2024. 

"“Ultimately, the awards don’t feel like they’re just for me. They feel like a reflection of the type of community that’s possible at Saint Mary’s. I was able to do all of these impactful things only because I had great people surrounding me.”

Land and Legacy 

Another goal, Simoni-Walters said last spring, was to “get an official Saint Mary’s land acknowledgment established before I graduate.” After joining the leadership team of SMC’s Native American and Indigenous Students Association (NAISA) in 2022, she became its president the following year. 

During her tenure, NAISA hosted cultural feasts, brought in guest lecturers, and raised awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous women. Still, the acknowledgment remained a top priority. 

Her predecessor, Nash Anderson ’24, MA ’25, had spent years developing an acknowledgment with the , which represents all known surviving tribal lineages in the San Francisco Bay region. 

Last summer, Simoni-Walters began working with Terri Jett, SMC’s Chief Diversity Officer, on formalizing the acknowledgment for the College. “It took years of work,” Simoni-Walters says, “but NAISA did it.”

Today, the official land acknowledgment is permanently featured on the Saint Mary’s website. The video version—which features Simoni-Walters —will be shared during first-year orientations, alumni gatherings, basketball games, and more. 

“It just feels so rewarding,” she says. “We had to meet with the right people, get the right resources pulled, and coordinate with local tribal members. So to leave such a concrete and tangible legacy at Saint Mary’s is incredible.”

A Testament to Community 

Like so much of her Saint Mary’s experience, Simoni-Walters sees the acknowledgment as a “team effort.” It’s one reason why, for her, the De La Salle Award and the Arthur S. Campbell Awards don’t feel like hers alone.

“None of the things I did would have been possible without all the amazing staff, faculty, and students,” Simoni-Walters says. “I think of all my professors in the School of Science—Karen Ruff, Khameeka Kitt-Hopper, Sonya Schuh, Jessica Coyle, Rebecca Jabbour, Elizabeth Valentin, and so many others. They are the reason I am a scientist today.” 

She credits the leaders of NAISA, too—including Nash Anderson, Alexis Hackett ’26, Hayley Gray '26, and Anthony Yao '26—with being “a force for good on campus and in my life.” 

“Ultimately, the awards don’t feel like they’re just for me,” Simoni-Walters says. “They feel like a reflection of the type of community that’s possible at Saint Mary’s. I was able to do all of these impactful things only because I had great people surrounding me.”

Hayden Royster is Staff Writer and Francis Tatem is Digital Content Producer in the Office of Marketing and Communications.