Sondra Simon was born in Chicago, Illinois on November 28th, 1928 and died at home surrounded by family and friends on May 17th, 2022. In between, she lived a life that centered on her children and grandchildren and her passion for civil rights and education. As a civil rights activist, she helped to desegregate the St. Louis lunchrooms in the 1950’s, volunteered at a Los Angeles Police Malpractice Complaints Center in the 1960’s and fundraised tirelessly for the ACLU and the Democratic Party. In her later years, she served for decades as a teachers’ aide at Pacific Palisades Elementary School, leaving a legacy of students who learned to love education. Without her encouragement to pursue classes at the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles, I would not currently be a professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Maryland and my great passion for science would have never been realized. I am so pleased to dedicate this Maryland Promise Scholarship to my mother, Sondra Simon, which exemplifies all of her life’s passions - Anne E. Simon