Congratulations to the 2012-2013 Scholarship Recipients

USC TJA 2012-13 SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS

Congratulations to our amazing scholarship recipients. 

Check out how incredible these women are!

Nancy Benner will be graduating from USC this May as a Chemistry major. She has a GPA of 3.93 and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Mortar Board, Troy Camp and Golden Key International. While at USC, she has received numerous grants from Women in Science and Engineering, the Rose Hills Foundation and the Anton B. Burg Foundation. Her research, which she has been conducting with Dr. Thieo Hogen-Esch, is focused on polymers, including polymers that will spontaneously heal themselves when damaged. Nancy also won first prize at the USC Undergraduate Writers Conference for a paper she wrote on “obesogens,” chemicals that may be contributing to the obesity epidemic. Nancy will be attending Stanford University next fall as a graduate student, pursuing her Ph.D. in chemistry. Her goal is to become an organic chemistry professor at a major university.

Richelle Gribble is a senior at USC pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with dual minors in Social Entrepreneurship and Marketing. She is interested in utilizing art, crowdsourcing initiatives, interactive technology and cause marketing to promote prominent social issues to inspire collaborative action. She currently interns at the USC Society and Business Lab (SBL) where she recruits CEO-level speakers in fields of corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship and the nonprofit sector to speak to students for the SBL Lunch and Learn lecture series. Additionally, she serves as Project Manager for the USC Mobile News Incubator Program which utilizes mobile services to benefit a local nonprofit organization called TRUST South LA. Last summer she worked as a Digital Marketing Intern at (RED), a nonprofit organization which aims to ‘harness the power of companies and people to fight AIDS.’ At USC, Richelle is a Residential Advisor of three years, coordinator of USC’s annual art festival called Arts in the Park, president of the Students of Fine Arts Association and the Chief Communications Officer for the USC Entrepreneurship Club. She is a third-time recipient of the USC Provost Research Fellowship which funds her ongoing independent research project called Networked Life which makes visual comparisons between various network structures (i.e. molecular systems, neural networks, economic structures, social networks, etc.); her art and research explores concepts of virality, group dynamics and social trends that connect us all. Her artwork has been shown in several galleries nation-wide and is the newest addition to the USC Art and Trojan Traditions collection. She was a recent panelist for the USC Brain and Creativity Panel and was a speaker for this year’s TEDxTrousdale event.

Jessica Kuo is a junior Neuroscience major with a minor in East Asian Cultures and Languages. She will be applying to medical school in the fall. Her hobbies include reading, kayaking and tennis. Jessica is currently Editor-in-Chief of USC’s Pre-Health newspaper, whose mission includes disseminating information and opportunities to future healthcare professionals. Jessica is also active involved with the USC Alumni Association as a member of Society 53 where she enjoys collaborating with alumni to spread the spirit of the Trojan Family to current undergraduates. Off campus, Jessica conducts research at the National Institute of Transplantation and volunteers in hospitals and local clinics. When she has time, Jessica takes on the challenge of teaching her roommates tennis.

Ruth Madievsky is a senior majoring in Biology and minoring in Thematic Approaches to Humanities and Society. Her greatest passions are helping others, particularly in the realm of public health, and creative writing. She is a writing tutor, a research assistant at an HIV clinic in downtown Los Angeles, and a published poet and fiction writer. She is graduating in May and will attend the USC School of Pharmacy in the fall. She plans on pursuing careers as both an ambulatory care pharmacist and a writer. You can find her published poem online in Literary Orphans and can expect to see more of her fiction and poetry in literary magazines such as Revolution House, The Vein and Camroc Press Review within the next six months.

 

Taryn Nagata is a senior majoring in Communication with a minor in Communication Design, a blending of fine arts and business. She is a double legacy at USC, so has been a Trojan all of her life. She is passionate about children’s media and using it as an educational tool, and has completed internships with Disney Channel and Disney Junior for three semesters. Taryn is writing a senior thesis on kids’ television, focusing on narrative and industrial trends. When she is not in class or interning, Taryn volunteers with USC’s ArtSmart where she teaches an art history curriculum in nearby elementary schools. She also enjoys spending time with her sorority, Alpha Delta Pi, and is working on her own Etsy business.