Angela M. Sanchez thoroughly enjoyed her time at UCLA as an undergrad. She studied abroad in England for a summer and graduated debt-free. A member of College Honors, AAP, and the Alumni Scholars Club, Angela created two student groups, School on Wheels at UCLA and the UCLA magic club, completed an award-winning senior thesis, and even taught a class on magic history at UCLA.

Armed with the College Honors Program’s Naumburg Honors Programs Research Stipend, Sanchez conducted original research at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, Skirball Center in Los Angeles, Conjuring Arts Research Center in New York, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Harvard

University’s Theater Collection and Boston’s Mini Museum of Magic History. Her resulting thesis, “Conjuring the Modern Woman: Women and Their Representation in the Golden Age of Magic,” was selected to receive one of eight UCLA Library Prizes for Undergraduate Research.

A history major with minors in English and education, she also netted a valuable service award. Sanchez was selected as a junior as one of 15 recipients statewide for the Donald A. Strauss Scholarship, which provides $10,000 toward a public service project. She founded and directed UCLA’s branch of School on Wheels, Inc., a nonprofit that tutors homeless K–12 students in the Los Angeles area. She has a special connection to these students, having herself been homeless while she was attending Hoover High School in Glendale, from which she graduated. Sanchez and her father spent two years in a homeless shelter, during which time she was tutored by a School on Wheels volunteer, a graduate student from Caltech. In addition to tutoring, UCLA’s School on Wheels program offers workshops on financial aid, scholarship awareness and college readiness, and sponsors a tour of UCLA.

Sanchez graduated magna cum laude with History Department and College honors and a Chancellor’s Service Award.  She completed her Master’s in Education with a concentration in Student Affairs at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. She now works for the ECMC Foundation as the Program Analyst for College Readiness and Retention. Prior to the ECMC Foundation, Angela provided the evaluation component to UCLA’s Philanthropy Lab, a course in which undergraduates allocate $100,000 among Los Angeles nonprofits of their selection. She has also worked in UCLA’s Alumni Affairs, assessing scholarship recipients’ feedback to engage alumni and encourage giving. Angela continues to provide motivational talks for students across Los Angeles.

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