Carnegie Mellon Students To Receive Scholarship Awards From Philanthropic Group

November 14, 2005, PITTSBURGH—Four Carnegie Mellon University doctoral students will each receive the first installment of a three-year $15,000 scholarship on Nov. 15, 2005, from the ARCS Foundation, Inc., at a Duquesne Club luncheon event.

The ARCS Foundation, Inc. (Achievement Rewards for College Scientists) is a national volunteer women’s organization dedicated to strengthening American science and technology by providing scholarships to the best and brightest U.S. graduate and undergraduate students in the natural sciences, medicine and engineering.

This year’s award recipients are Gabriella Engelhart, a doctoral student in the Chemical Engineering Department; Kathleen Spees, a doctoral student in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy; and Michael Dinitz and Daniel Wendlandt, both doctoral students in the School of Computer Science. Doctoral student Elisabeth Gilmore of Engineering and Public Policy will receive the second installment of her three-year $15,000 scholarship at an awards luncheon featuring keynote speaker Jay Apt, a former astronaut and executive director of the Electricity Industry Center at Carnegie Mellon.

“The scholarships that we receive from the Pittsburgh Chapter of the ARCS Foundation are important to Carnegie Mellon’s College of Engineering,” said James H. Garrett Jr., associate dean for academic affairs at the College of Engineering and a professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. “With this support from ARCS, we have been able to recruit some excellent U.S. students.”

Jeanne B. Berdik, Pittsburgh ARCS chapter president, said the scholarships are designed to make a significant contribution to Pittsburgh’s scientific community by helping recruit the best American doctoral students in the sciences and technology to Carnegie Mellon. “A growing economy is fueled by innovation and the ARCS Foundation helps bring the people responsible for that innovation to Pittsburgh,” Berdik said. The Pittsburgh chapter of ARCS, which began in 2003, has a goal of providing $350,000 for 24 scholars in the next five years.

“I appreciate the award not only for the financial support that allows me to purchase additional research supplies and travel to conferences, but also for the personal attention and care offered by the local Pittsburgh members of ARCS,” Wendlandt said. His research involves making the Internet more reliable and secure.

Nationwide, the ARCS Foundation has 1,400 members in 14 chapters throughout the United States. Since the organization’s founding in 1958, scholarship funding has totaled more than $53 million to 10,475 scholars at more than 45 of the country’s best universities, making the ARCS Foundation the single largest contributor to basic scientific education of any private membership organization in the United States.

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Chriss Swaney

Carnegie Mellon University

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