IEEE Scholarship: Changing Student Lives
- The IEEE Presidents' Scholarship, an annual award of US $10,000, marked its 25th anniversary last year.
- The IEEE Foundation funds the scholarship, which IEEE Educational Activities administers.
- To commemorate the scholarship's anniversary, past winners discussed the award's impact on their lives and careers.
The IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship has been transforming the lives of STEM students for 25 years,awarding US $10,000 annually to deserving high schoolers participating in the Regeneron ISEF. This premier scholarship, administered by IEEE Educational Activities and funded by the IEEE Foundation, has a history of supporting future leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. From a Harvard professor to a film producer, past recipients detail how this recognition shaped their careers. News Directory 3 highlights how the scholarship helped individuals achieve their goals. Discover the ongoing impact of the IEEE presidents’ Scholarship and the innovative future it supports.
IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship Celebrates 25 Years of STEM support
The IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship, an annual award of US $10,000, marked its 25th anniversary last year. The scholarship is awarded to one high school student participating in the Regeneron (formerly Intel) International Science and Engineering fair (ISEF), the world’s largest international STEM research competition for high school students.
IEEE volunteer judges select the scholarship finalists. The IEEE Foundation funds the scholarship, which IEEE Educational Activities administers.
To commemorate the scholarship’s anniversary, past winners discussed the award’s impact on their lives and careers.
Elena Glassman, the 2004 scholarship recipient, developed a Brain-Computer Interface for the Muscularly Disabled project. She wrote code to collect EEG wavelets that predicted her own right or left arm movement with 73 percent accuracy.
Today, Glassman is an assistant professor of computer science at Harvard, where she teaches human-computer interaction.She is also a new mother. The scholarship supported her education at MIT, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.she said the scholarship was among the most memorable awards she received.
Glassman said it was meaningful to have her project evaluated by IEEE judges who understood the work. With encouragement from her father,a lifelong IEEE member,she submitted a paper about her project to IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering,which published it.
In her current work, she focuses on the “human side of programming,” adding that her electrical engineering background is useful in tackling various projects.
Adam Sidman, the 2005 scholarship recipient, won for his Camera Stabilization: Take Two project, which centered on developing a handheld servo-based device. the film and TV producer in Los Angeles said his invention is a “go-to everyday technology for filmmakers on sets around the world.”
Sidman is chief executive of Timur Bekmambetov’s production company, Baszezevs, where he has overseen movies including The Current War, Hardcore Henry, Searching, and Unfriended.
Sidman said receiving the scholarship was “a tremendous honor,” validating his passion to combine the arts and sciences. He graduated from Harvard with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and visual and environmental studies.
Last year, he collaborated with ISEF organizers to establish a new category of projects, Technology Enhances the Arts, and continues to serve as a judge.
Rahul Kumar Pandey, a software engineer-turned-entrepreneur, received the scholarship in 2007. His startup, Taro, helps software engineers navigate the professional world, providing advice on job searching, negotiation, promotions, and leadership.the platform has more than 100,000 users. Pandey is a writer for IEEE’s Careers newsletter.
The scholarship supported his degree in computer science at Stanford.
He credits his science-fair experience with giving him the confidence to innovate and advance the field.
His winning project, A Microwave Metamaterial Lens With Negative Index of Refraction, focused on building a lens array to transmit microwave signals and tested their behavior in terms of how the lens affected the propagation of electromagnetic waves.
Pandey recalled being unable to stop smiling when he heard his name called, because an organization like IEEE believed in him.
Pandey advises high school students that “the world is your oyster if you have curiosity” and that they do not have to wait until they feel ready.
Harikrishna “Hari” Rallapalli, the 2008 scholarship recipient, is a research fellow at the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Md.
Rallapalli plans to research techniques that enable gene expression imaging in humans, a method that allows for visualizing and quantifying the activity of specific genes.
His winning project, Low-Cost Total internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy, focused on building a microscope for classrooms, both for demonstrations and student-level research.
The scholarship helped support his education at the University of California, Davis, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering.
Rallapalli said it felt amazing to have his work recognized by an organization as prestigious as IEEE, adding that it was an early indication that he might succeed as a scientist.
Jessica Richeri, the 2011 recipient, is a software design engineer at Fluke in Everett, Wash. She is designing and developing a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system for one of the company’s factories. The system collects data from equipment and creates analytics dashboards and reports.
Richeri’s winning entry,Autonomous Robotic Vehicle: Saving Lives,Preventing Accidents,One at a Time,centered on building a vehicle and software to support it. She said her design and its use of sensors and software could be incorporated into vehicles to prevent traffic accidents.
Richeri said the scholarship meant the world to her, and that she felt honored to receive the award for all the hard work she put into her project.
A year after receiving the scholarship, she was invited to the California Capitol, in Sacramento, to present her project and discuss promoting STEM fields with her U.S. representative.
The money supported her education at California Baptist University in Riverside, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering.
“Winning the scholarship gave me confidence that my engineering passion could become a career. It was the start of my incredibly fun and exciting professional journey.” -2015 winner Alex Tacescu
George Morgan, the 2014 scholarship recipient, presented A Multi-Architectural Approach to the Development of Embedded Software. His aim was to make hardware and software development more accessible. He transformed his project into a suite of development tools for embedded-systems engineers to expedite operations.
Morgan recalled feeling the excitement of being recognized on stage.
what’s next
The IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship will continue to recognize and support exceptional high school students pursuing STEM fields, fostering innovation and leadership in the next generation of engineers and scientists.