‘Embracing uncertainty and opportunity for learning’: Grace Leeson ’26 brings medical and language expertise to where she’s needed most

Grace Leeson wasn’t accustomed to being behind the pack. But here she was in Puebla, Mexico — for a whole semester her junior year — and out of everyone in her cohort, she was the only one who was not either a Spanish major or a native speaker. Most of her classes were entirely in Spanish, she was living with a Spanish-speaking host family, and she’d be shadowing Spanish-speaking doctors. Though she’d taken enough Spanish classes to meet her program’s prerequisites, Leeson wasn’t fluent. “I was.