Material Courtesy Dr. Vincent Stallings
Amazon announced the 2023 Amazon Future Engineer Scholarship recipients. This year, Amazon awarded 400 scholarships, providing a total of $16 million in paid tuition for students to attend the U.S. college or university of their choice. Through Amazon Future Engineer, their global philanthropic education initiative, each student will receive $40,000 over four years to pursue a degree in computer science or engineering and a paid internship after their freshman year to gain practical work experience with mentorship from Amazon leaders.
Scholarship recipients applied for the opportunity and were selected based on academic achievement, demonstrated leadership, community involvement, work experience, future goals, and financial need.
This year’s cohort, which includes high school seniors from nearly 40 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, is the most diverse yet with representation from groups that are currently underrepresented in jobs related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). More than 70% of these remarkable students identify as Black, Latino, and Native American, and 50% identify as a woman or nonbinary.
The East Orange STEM Academy winners are Daniella Barron, Computer Science, Rutgers University, Serena Bazilio, Computer Science, University of Southern California, Gael Fievre, Computer Science, Northeastern, Alisa Phill, Computer Science, Rutgers University.
“Every year, I continue to be inspired by our scholarship recipients’ academic achievements and drive to use their problem-solving abilities to build solutions for their communities,” said Victor Reinoso, global director of Philanthropic Education Initiatives at Amazon.
“With students from historically underrepresented and underserved communities representing only 18% of CS bachelor’s degrees, we believe that connecting students to computer science education and opportunities helps create a more equitable and inclusive future, across all industries and sectors, for generations to come.”
Dr. Vincent Stallings, the principal of East Orange STEM Academy stated, “The Amazon Scholarship program has provided a great opportunity for our students to continue to dream big and remain focus on their goals. As a school community we’re very proud of student recipients and humbled by this opportunity.”
