Once, twice, three times a Bruin
Graduating senior siblings Umiemah, Qasim and Humzah Farrukh are making a huge impact on UCLA and the world
Omar Farrukh
Qasim, Umiemah and Humzah Farrukh
Jonathan Riggs | June 15, 2023
At the 2023 commencement, UCLA will welcome more than 14,000 new members to the Bruin alumni family. Three of these members, however, are already pretty close.
This year, younger sister Umiemah and middle brother Qasim will graduate with bachelor’s degrees in psychology while older brother Humzah Farrukh will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in sociology. All born within four years of each other, the Farrukh siblings’ lifelong bond is strong — even though they hadn’t planned to move through their schooling in unison, they all transferred to UCLA from El Camino College in 2021.
“We like to say we are triplets in spirit,” said Umiemah. “For us, three heads have certainly been better than one!”
“Our biggest strength as siblings has been that we have been able to rely on each other’s unique life experiences and diverse skill sets,” Qasim adds.
That’s been the case since the trio were growing up in Vancouver, Canada to parents who emigrated from Pakistan in the 1980s. Taught from a young age to give back to their community, the siblings dreamed of one day attending UCLA due to its commitment to historically disadvantaged communities so they could contribute to transformative social change — but they weren’t always sure that dream would come true.
“Eight years ago and 1,300 miles away, I would often sit in my high school’s library and listen to TED Talks from Professor Matthew Lieberman, a social psychologist at UCLA,” said Qasim. “I never thought it would be possible for me to actually take his class and work in his lab, but I did. Graduating from UCLA feels surreal, and I am honored that generations of my family will benefit from what my siblings and I have accomplished here during the best years of my life.”
One of these accomplishments includes the three launching the Farrukh Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to providing equal access to education.
“What better way to commemorate graduating from the No. 1 public university in the country than to launch our first campaign to help raise funds to build schools for children nationally and globally,” Humzah said. “Our nonprofit stands as a testament to our teamwork and collective vision. As we each venture into diverse fields after graduation, we carry with us the spirit of collaboration, the ethos of giving and a zeal for positive transformation.”
The siblings have already made impressive impacts.
Inspired by her desire to help peers and loved ones struggling with depression and anxiety, Umiemah led and organized studies in seven UC labs, resulting in publications and national conference presentations. For her commitment to revolutionary research under the mentorship of Michelle Craske, Kevin Love Fund Centennial Chair of psychology, including her thesis on an unexplored way to use personality traits in treatment, Umiemah won the Dean’s Award for Life Science Research and the 2022-2023 Undergraduate Research Scholars Program grant.
Umiemah and Qasim also created a novel research chapter in Psi Chi, the psychology honor society, in which she has managed and mentored 67 undergraduates to pursue independent research. In addition to winning an EDI Student Leadership Award, Umiemah served as a peer mentor and speaker on and off campus, working with UCLA Residential Life and the Undergraduate Research Centers and delivering the keynote at the annual EDI retreat for UCLA academic deans. She was also honored with the 2023 Chancellor’s Service Award for her efforts to facilitate the success of her peers and her overall contribution to the campus community.
During his time at UCLA, Qasim focused on political psychology by conducting an honors thesis through the UCLA Race, Ethnicity, Politics and Society Lab, exploring how South Asian Muslim Americans interact with their various identities in the political space. In his role as director of campus health through the USAC Office of the President, he was also able to enact massively impactful improvements on behalf of underserved communities. These included securing $35,000 worth of mental health and reproductive health treatment for uninsured students as well as establishing the first-ever overdose prevention task force at UCLA, allowing him to pursue his passion for the intersection between psychology and law. He received the 2022 UCLA Dean’s Award for Life Science Research and the 2023 Chancellor’s Service Award and was accepted into the Law Fellows Program at the UCLA School of Law.
Humzah followed his interest in using business channels to address societal issues and founded TVG Media, a marketing agency that helps small businesses, particularly in minority neighborhoods. In addition to advocacy work with BioscienceLA, Kaiser Permanente, Cedars Sinai and UCLA Health, he also conducted a yearlong consulting project in partnership with UCLA Anderson focused on increasing minority representation in the tech industry, particularly in the highest ranks of management. He will present this research at the annual Psi Chi research conference. Working closely with the leadership at Product Space UCLA, he also partnered with Amazon — one of his goals being to use their 16 leadership principles to create a more inclusive and diverse work environment, specifically in the Amazon Prime gaming division.
In addition to their scholarly achievements, some of the siblings’ favorite memories on campus are much smaller: silly jokes during their carpool to campus, editing each other’s program and club applications, cooking dinner together and cheering on UCLA sports teams.
And now, as they look back — honoring their parents for their sacrifice and support — and look ahead, where Umiemah will continue on to a clinical psychology doctoral program, Qasim will head to law school and Humzah will pursue an MBA, they are delighted that their family tradition will continue. The trio’s younger brother Omar just transferred to UCLA as well and hopes to major in sociology.
“Our advice to him and all incoming UCLA students would be to enjoy every experience and take advantage of every opportunity, because the time goes by too fast,” Umiemah said. “We are confident he is going to do amazing things during his time here, and we hope to be a source of support to him.”
Success, the siblings have found, is much sweeter when shared.
“The best part of my UCLA journey was cheering on my siblings as they accomplished incredible feats. Every individual win felt like a win for all of us, and I am incredibly grateful that we were able to have an impact on the community while creating these beautiful memories,” Humzah said. “As the saying goes, ‘I am, because we are.’ After all, if you really think about it, where would we be if we did not have each other?”
Read the siblings’ profile in the Daily Bruin as well.
For more of Our Stories at the College, click here.
