CHIH-YUAN HO
Taipei, Taiwan

Since being the first woman ever handed a VMI diploma in May 1999, Ho has learned to fly and to drive -- in that order.

She nearly quit the third day of flight school last summer, but "the VMI spirit and the words on the Jackson Arch" helped her finish the seven-week course, she said.

The inscription on the VMI landmark is a quote from Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson: "You may be whatever you resolve to be."

It's hard to tell exactly what Ho will be, unless the phrase "multimodal information presentation to support interruption management" means something to you. That's what Ho, a psychology major at VMI, is researching during graduate work in cognitive engineering at Ohio State University. She's not sure if she'll be able to stay in the United States. If she completes her Ph.D., she will be here at least another five or six years.

She hopes for a career in aviation safety.

"I would like to teach at VMI one day," she said in an e-mail, punctuated with a colon and parenthesis smiley face.