Up to 100 entrepreneurial, STEM-focused high school students across Canada are awarded the Schulich Leader Scholarship every year. This fall, 10 of the winners decided to attend Queen’s.
These students include Catie Austin, ArtSci ’24; Rabab Azeem, Sci ’24; Emma Davison, ArtSci ’24; Abdellah Ghassel, Sci ’24; and Sharaf Khan, ArtSci ’24.
Liyi Ma, Sci ’24; Shashank Ojha, Sci ’24; Emanuel Piccininni, Sci ’24; Nazanin Soghrati, ArtSci ’24; and Dajung Yoon, ArtSci ’24, are also recipients of the scholarship.
In 2012, businessman and philanthropist Seymour Schulich established the $100+ million scholarship fund as a way of supporting the next generation of entrepreneurial-minded technology innovators. The scholarship is worth up to $100,000 for each recipient.
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During the annual nomination period, every high school across Canada can nominate one student who displays academic excellence, leadership, charisma, and creativity.
“Technology is a really powerful field,” Catie Austin said in an interview with The Journal.
Austin said her ambition is to develop software that can help people with mental health issues like anxiety disorders.
The scholarship also takes financial need into account, allowing strong students to be able to attend university and focus on their studies when they otherwise may not have been able to.
“I was going to have to either win something like this, or I wasn’t going to be able to attend university this year,” Austin said.
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“It’s given me this newfound freedom which has opened all these doors for me. Not only with the networking side of the Schulich foundation, but also just the financial freedom,” Emma Davison told The Journal.
The scholarship also gives students the opportunity to pursue their ambitions while exploring new possibilities and meeting successful people with different interests.
“I’m really hoping to use science in a social way to create some change by eliminating inequalities that we have,” Davison said.
The 10 winners who arrived at Queen’s this fall have formed a community amongst themselves. They’ve also connected with Schulich Leaders in upper years at Queen’s and alumni.
“It’s really great because it is so many like-minded individuals who are in science and super innovative [and] diverse,” Davison said. “Every one of the winners will do amazing things.”
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