More than 4,100 refugees from around the world settled in New York state last year, mostly in counties across upstate where the transition can be challenging.

With so many new community members, Russell Sage College marked World Refugee Day by hosting a field day Thursday for dozens of middle schoolers from the Albany International Center.

“We love working with refugees,” Nassira Cisse said.

The nursing student is in her third year at the college, and knows what it’s like having immigrated from West Africa’s Ivory Coast in 2018.

“I went to an international high school in the Bronx for three years and graduated in 2021,” she said.

The journey has inspired her to want to give back to families beginning a transition she says is far from easy.

“My first language is French,” she said. “Being here speaking English at first wasn’t easy for me.”

Helping organize the field day is just the start of Cisse’s summer of giving back. She is working on a research project focused on health care access among refugee families.

“The biggest worry was about trust,” she recalled of her family’s own experience. “I think listening to them, listening to their stories and advocating for what they need is something everyone could do.”

Faculty leading the Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program say Cisse brings an invaluable perspective to their work.

“She saw her mom work through all of these challenges as she tried to get her children acclimated,” said Ali Schaeffing, the college’s director of service learning and community engagement. “Nassira is dedicating her life to improve our health care system. I can’t imagine a better way to spend my summer.”

The research team will spend the next eight weeks interviewing families as they navigate the health care system. In addition to helping make a smoother transition, Cisse says she’s doing the work in her mother’s honor.

“Her dream was to be educated, and she gave me this opportunity,” she explained. “My biggest goal is to make her proud.”

Having already become the first member of her family to attend college, Cisse is already accomplishing that goal.