Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa ’94

From humble beginnings in Mexico, Quiñones-Hinojosa hopped the fence into the United States at age 19 to seek a better life — and has been breaking boundaries ever since. A world-renowned neurosurgeon and researcher at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Q, as he is known today, started off as a fieldworker in central California but refused to accept this as fate. He eventually received a scholarship to Berkeley, where he majored in psychology, then graduated cum laude from Harvard with a medical degree. Today he performs nearly 250 surgeries a year and researches neural stem cells to understand how brain cancer originates and spreads. In a 2008 Nova story, Dr. Q said, “The odds are overwhelmingly against me succeeding in this field, as far as finding a cure or a better way to treat brain cancer. But so were the chances of me sitting here with you.” His recent memoir, Becoming Dr. Q, testifies to the power of dreams, determination, and believing in people’s potential, regardless of their class or race. Find Dr. Q on Facebook or YouTube.