Jamie Zhou
STEM Scholarship Recipient, 2025
Jamie Zhou, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, comes from Whitestown, IN and is a member of the class of 2027. She is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree with a goal of becoming an MD/PhD, specializing in ophthalmology. Her objective is to find early indicators of neurodegenerative disease in order to intervene before disease progression. Ms. Zhou’s internship work has already resulted in a presentation at an industry leading organization. Her many academic awards are indicative of her high commitment to furthering healthcare advances.
McKayla Kruger
STEM Scholarship Recipient, 2025
McKayla Kruger, McCormick School of Engineering, comes from Litchfield, Minnesota, and is majoring in Manufacturing and Design Engineering while pursuing a minor in Global Health Studies. Her goal is to “design affordable, adaptable medical devices” that will help improve outcomes, with special interests in diabetic innovations and biometric devices for athletes – as she is passionate about ultrarunning (running distances beyond the marathon - 26.2 miles). Her minor in Global Health is essential to achieving her “long term vision of creating biomedical solutions that are globally accessible and socially responsible.”
Abby Wertz
STEM Scholarship Recipient, 2025
Abby Wertz, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is a member of the class of 2027 and is seeking a degree in Biological Sciences: Human Health and Disease and Global Health Studies on the pre-medical path. Her goal is to become a Cardiothoracic Surgeon, a specialty made up of only 9% of women physicians. She has a special interest in women’s health and is conducting maternal health research within her Global Health Studies major. As a junior in high school, she was selected by the American College of Cardiology to be a Young Scholar attending ACC meetings and their annual conference to learn about research and technology. Abby is deeply involved in the Northwestern community as she is an organic chemistry peer tutor on campus and conducts traumatic brain injury research in the Schwulst lab at Feinberg Medical School. She is an EMT and is currently working with the Red Cross and Abbott to plan blood drives around Northwestern’s campus. Through her academic, research, and service endeavors, Abby is committed to advancing women’s health and contributing to the future of medicine as a passionate, forward-thinking female physician.
Grace En Xie
STEM Scholarship Recipient, 2025
Grace En Xie, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is from Lawrence, KS. A member of the Class of 2027, she is majoring in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences (MMSS), Data Science, and Economics. Since her freshman year, she has been a research assistant in Northwestern’s Spatial Thinking and Representations (STAR) Lab, contributing to a meta-analysis on mental rotation in young children. She presented this work at the annual Midwestern Psychological Association Conference, sharing findings on how stimuli influence children’s spatial performance. Building on this foundation, she served as a research intern focusing on healthcare policy, where she developed a model quantifying the costs of criminalizing homelessness to support human rights advocacy groups. This experience deepened her commitment to applying economic methods to inform public health policy. Beyond academics, Grace is an executive board member of several student-run dance organizations at Northwestern.
Pranav Inampudi
STEM Scholarship Recipient, 2025
Pranav Inampudi, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, from Naperville, Illinois, is a member of the class of 2027. He is seeking a degree in Biological Sciences, Global Health, Science of Human Culture. Pranav is a recipient of the Elk's Most Valuable Student Semi-Finalist Award. He was selected from over 22,000 applicants nationwide. Upon graduation, Pranav intends to pursue medical school, where he aims to integrate clinical practice with research and advocacy to address substance use and reduce health disparities. In this process, he aspires to collaborate with an Illinois State Representative to strengthen substance use prevention and recovery initiatives, and expand the reach of ParentSMART, a digital intervention targeting adolescent substance use that he helped develop."
Erika Ruiz-Yamamoto
STEM Scholarship Recipient, 2025
Erika Ruiz-Yamamoto, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, comes from South Bend, IN and is a member of the class of 2027. She is pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree and intends to obtain her MD and MPH. Her objective, through her future research, is to inform public health policy and to improve delivery on a global scale. In addition to numerous academic awards, Ms. Ruiz-Yamamoto demonstrates her awareness of social impact by editing a forthcoming anthology of incarcerated women’s writings.
Jayden Wool
STEM Scholarship Recipient, 2025
Jayden Wool, McCormick School of Engineering, is from Pennsylvania, the Greater Philadelphia Area. A member of the class of 2027, Jayden is majoring in computer science, physics, and computer engineering. He is in a combined BS/MS program and will be receiving both a Bachelor of Science degree as well as a Masters degree. To accomplish this, he has carried an overload of courses while working three jobs. Jayden wants to contribute to the rapidly changing world of computing.
Fifteen Northwestern Students Granted Summer Internships by The Alumnae of Northwestern University
pam.james
29 July, 2025 04:23 PM
July 29, 2025
EVANSTON, Ill., -- The Alumnae of Northwestern University has selected 15 students to receive grants to fund 2025 summer internships. The Summer Internship Grant Program (SIGP) provides undergraduate students a $3,500 stipend for completing an unpaid summer internship, of which $2,000 is funded by The Alumnae, a staunch supporter of the SIGP program since 2010.
Ten Northwestern Students Granted STEM Scholarships By The Alumnae of Northwestern University
pam.james
26 June, 2025 11:38 AM
Evanston, Ill.—The Alumnae of Northwestern University has selected ten students to receive the 2025-2026 Alumnae STEM Scholarships, which are awarded to students who excel in a STEM discipline -- science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Criteria for selection include academic excellence, honors achieved, and financial need. The intent of this scholarship is to free rising juniors from work commitments so they may more vigorously pursue their chosen area of study and other university projects.