We recently connected with Sam Forouzan and have shared our conversation below.
Sam, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
Growing up in San Diego, I watched immigrant families live blocks away from hospitals they didn’t know how to use and schools they were afraid to enter. The resources were right there. But being close to something and being able to reach it are two completely different things. I kept seeing the same pattern. A kid would show up to school sick, stay sick for weeks. Not because treatment didn’t exist, but because their parents didn’t know which clinic to go to, or they were afraid asking for help might jeopardize their status. Resources were there. The bridge to reach them wasn’t.
That gap gnawed at me. I realized my purpose wasn’t just about understanding health or disease – it was about making sure solutions actually reach the people who need them. So I started Steps Ahead to do exactly that. I went to shelters across San Diego with surveys, asking people what they actually needed versus what organizations assumed they needed. The answers surprised me. Language barriers mattered, sure. But the deeper issue was navigating systems that felt deliberately confusing.
Once I could see the specific gaps, I could build specific solutions. Connect families to local clinics. Create guides for accessing services. Train volunteers to help people fill out forms that shouldn’t be so complicated in the first place. Small fixes, but they worked because they addressed real problems instead of imagined ones.
That experience changed how I think about impact. I’m studying Public Health and Molecular & Cell Biology now because I realized you can’t fix healthcare equity from one angle. Understanding disease at the cellular level matters. Understanding how populations access care matters just as much. Both perspectives are necessary.
Here’s what keeps me going: we’re living through a moment where scientific breakthroughs happen faster than ever. Treatments that used to take decades to develop now take years. CRISPR, immunotherapy, mRNA vaccines – the pace of discovery is staggering. But I keep thinking about those families in San Diego. What good is a breakthrough treatment if it never reaches the people who need it most?
That’s the work I want to do. Not just discovering solutions, but building the systems that deliver them equitably. Making sure innovation serves everyone, not just those who already know how to access it. My purpose isn’t about choosing between science and service. It’s about refusing to separate them.
The bridge matters as much as what’s on either side of it. I want to spend my life building better ones.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’m working at the intersection of two things that matter deeply to me: building systems that connect people to healthcare resources, and developing treatments that could save lives.
Steps Ahead started as a way to bridge the gap I saw in San Diego – immigrant families living near hospitals and clinics they couldn’t access. What began with surveys at local shelters has grown into something bigger than I imagined. We now have over 240 youth volunteers across 8 states and 4 countries, all working to make healthcare, education, and essential resources more accessible to underserved communities.
Right now, we’re building a digital platform specifically for San Diego immigrants – a place where someone can enter their zip code and immediately see what resources exist nearby. Clinics that offer translation services. Legal aid offices. Food banks. All the things that are technically available but practically invisible if you don’t know where to look. We’re turning stepsaheadorganization.com into the bridge I wish had existed when I first started noticing these gaps.
On the research side, I’m in the Rankin Lab at Stanford working on something that could change outcomes for women with ovarian cancer. We’ve developed a therapeutic antibody that targets ovarian cancer tumors, and we’re running in vivo studies right now. The stakes are real – only 31% of women diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer survive five years. That statistic haunts me. We hope that through this antibody, we may be able to increase that number.
What excites me most is how these two paths – community health access and cancer research – aren’t separate at all. Discovering a breakthrough treatment means nothing if it never reaches the people who need it. Steps Ahead taught me how to think about access and equity. The lab is teaching me how to develop solutions worth accessing. I need both perspectives to do the work I want to do.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Adaptability mattered because setbacks happened constantly. Funding applications got turned down. Organizations couldn’t partner. Volunteers didn’t show up. In research, experiments failed and hypotheses didn’t pan out. Each setback meant finding a different approach. Grant rejected? Try local businesses. Partnership didn’t work out? Go directly to shelter coordinators. Research protocol not working? Redesign the experiment with what you learned. Whether I was building Steps Ahead or working on antibody research at Stanford, the pattern stayed the same: things rarely work on the first try. For anyone starting out: hearing “no” is normal. What matters is whether you can adjust and keep moving.
Strategic problem-solving helped when I wanted to support immigrant communities in San Diego but didn’t know where to start. I learned to break down broad goals into specific questions. Instead of trying to address all integration challenges, I asked: what obstacles do families actually face? I surveyed people at shelters and listened. Those conversations revealed concrete needs – help navigating healthcare, understanding school systems, accessing legal resources. Suddenly I had clear problems to work on. My advice: start with questions before jumping to solutions. Let what you learn shape your approach.
Seeking mentorship made the biggest difference. I didn’t know how to run a nonprofit, so I asked people who did. I reached out to directors at other organizations, professors who studied these issues, anyone willing to share what they’d learned. They helped me avoid obvious mistakes and connected me with others doing similar work. The same thing happened in research – experienced people in the Rankin Lab showed me how to approach experiments properly. My advice: figure out what you don’t know, then find people who can help you learn it. That’s not a shortcut. That’s just being smart about your time.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I’m looking to connect with a few different groups of people.
First, ambitious students who are relentlessly passionate about making things happen. If you’re someone who sees problems and can’t help but try to solve them, I want to hear from you. Steps Ahead is growing, and we need people who bring energy and ideas to the table. Whether you’re interested in healthcare access, education equity, or community organizing, there’s room for you on our team.
I’m also looking for mentors who’ve built organizations, navigated nonprofit challenges, or worked in healthcare systems. Your experience could help us avoid mistakes and scale more effectively. If you’ve been where I’m trying to go, your guidance would mean a lot.
For organizations interested in partnerships or sponsorships, we’re actively expanding Steps Ahead to new locations and building our resource platform for immigrant communities. If your organization aligns with our mission of improving healthcare and education access for underserved populations, let’s talk about how we can work together.
Really, anyone who wants to get involved is welcome to reach out. We need volunteers, advisors, collaborators, and supporters who believe that access to resources shouldn’t depend on luck or who you know.
You can connect with me through our website at stepsaheadorganization.com (there’s a contact form), email me directly at [email protected], or find me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/samforouzan. I respond to everything, so don’t hesitate to reach out.
Contact Info:
- Website: stepsaheadorganization.com
- Linkedin: Sam Forouzan, https://www.linkedin.com/in/samforouzan/
- Other: [email protected]
