Scholarship Winners from SWE-LA
2002-2003

Laurel Koester
Lockheed Martin Scholarship
Industrial Engineering
California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo

Sheridan Vo
Lockheed Martin Scholarship
Chemical Engineering
California Polytechnic University, Pomona

Heather Heiman
Loring Nicholson Scholarship
Electrical Engineering
California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo

Amy VanMunn
Rockwell Scientific Scholarship
Electrical Engineering
University of California, Santa Barbara

Johanna Wonsowicz
TRW Space and Electronics Scholarship
Industrial Engineering
University of Southern California

Jennifer Harris
TRW Systems Command and Control Intelligence Scholarship
Industrial Engineering
California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo

2001-2002

Kristen Carlson

Ms. Kristen Carlson is a graduate student at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, majoring in electrical engineering. She is in the combined bachelors/masters honor program. She has been a member of SWE since 1996 and is a mentor to an undergraduate SWE member. She was awarded Cal Poly's prestigious graduate internship with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in northern California. At the National Lab, she is conducting research for her master's thesis on biomedical photonics.

Jennifer Harris

Ms. Harris is a senior at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo majoring in industrial engineering. She has been very involved with the SWE student section since 1999 including positions as vice president, regional student representative, and is the current president. Jennifer is this year's recipient of the Loring Nicolson scholarship. The Loring Nicolson scholarship is funded entirely by the SWE-LA section. This scholarship and is awarded to a student who best represents those values that define our organization, values which Loring herself exemplified. In addition to her activities at school, Jennifer supports her education by working at the California Regional Water Quality Control Board in San Luis Obispo. As the information systems technician she provides technical support to the Board's staff of 100 employees.

Laurel Kester

Ms. Kester is currently a junior majoring in Industrial Engineering at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Last year, she was the academic director for SWE, a new position she created. As academic director, her main goal was to obtain support for their Evening with Industry Scholarships and Awards. She achieved her goal, raising more than $15,000 in support for 11 scholarships. This was a large task which required Laurel to collect applications, communicate the scholarship requirements, recruit faculty members to evaluate the applications, and present the scholarships at the banquet. Although quite involved in outside activities, she has been able to excel academically as demonstrated by her 3.9 gpa.

Veronica Loete

Ms. Veronica Loete is a sophomore at USC majoring in environmental engineering. While only a sophomore, she has shown a high level of maturity. She is an active member of SWE, working in the sister/sister workshop and is extremely active in the Engineering Student Ambassador's Program. As an Ambassador, Veronica gives campus tours to prospective students, conducts student panels, and even conducts scholarship interviews. She is in the WVT Rusch Honors Engineering Program and she must maintain an overall gpa of 3.6 to stay in the program.

Kelly Okonek

Ms. Kelly Okonek is a senior at UCLA majoring in chemical engineering. She has been a SWE member since she was a freshman and is the Evening with Industry Chair for this upcoming year. Her academic achievement is exemplified by her acceptance into the select honors course - the Human Genome, in which she received the highest grade in the class. After this class in the spring of 1999, Kelly switched from Liberal Arts to Chemical engineering. She has excelled in her studies maintaining a 3.9 gpa and is ranked second among upper level chemical engineering students at UCLA.

Maria Pavlovsky

Maria is a senior at Loyola Marymount, majoring in civil engineering. She has been involved with SWE since she was a freshman and is very active in the American society of civil engineers. She emigrated from Russia in 1994, and has excelled in engineering at Loyola, with a 3.8 gpa. Last year she was a teaching assistant for statics class and this summer, she worked at Spacian Technologies, a software engineering company for structural engineering applications. To support her education, Maria will continue working at Spacian part-time during the school year.

Julia Tam

Ms. Julia Tam is a graduate student at UCLA pursuing her masterâs degree in electrical engineering. She received her bachelor's degree from UCLA where she was a very active member of SWE. As the external vice president last year, she created a resume database, published a quarterly newsletter, and raised $4,000 for their Evening with Industry banquet. She is extremely ambitious, planning to complete her master's degree in one year, while also supporting her degree as either a teaching or research assistant.

Johanna Wonsowicz

Johanna is a senior at USC majoring in industrial and systems engineering. She has been very active at the student SWE section. Last year she was responsible for maintaining and updating their website and currently she is the vice president of corporate affairs. Last May she won the technical presentation award at the SWE Region B conference. In addition to her SWE activities, last year Johanna founded an on-line magazine for USC students and is on the editorial board.

2000-2001

Jeannette  Wait
Structural Engineering @ USC
Scholarship from ARCO

Ms. Jeannette Wait is a graduate student at USC pursuing her master’s degree in structural engineering. She graduated from Harvey Mudd College in May 1999 with a 3.7 gpa. At Harvey Mudd, she was an active member of SWE. Her current research involves electromechanical components under dynamic loads to establish their fragility levels. Her long-range interests include working with the FEMA agency for damage detection and structural health monitoring. She spent this past summer working at Los Alamos National Laboratories in a large scale testing laboratory as one of 15 researchers selected nationwide.

Hayley McGuire
Aerospace Engineering @  USC
Loring Nicolson Scholarship

Ms. Hayley McGuire is a senior at USC majoring in aerospace engineering. She has been very active in SWE and is our Loring Nicolson recipient. Her past positions include Historian and External Secretary. Last year she was the corporate representative organizing section meetings with companies. In addition, she organized the Afternoon with Industry event in which companies met with SWE members after the USC career fair. In addition, she helped coordinate the regional conference. Currently, she is the section president. She spent this past summer interning at Hughes Space and Communications. This past year, she helped support her education and her father by assisting him with his business repairing Braille writers, typewriters for the blind.

Van Tran
Aerospace Engineering @  Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
Scholarship from Rockwell

Ms. Van Tran is currently a junior majoring in Aerospace Engineering at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Last year, she was the outreach coordinator for SWE, visiting local schools from grammar to high school to educate younger students on engineering. In addition, she created the High School Shadow Program in which high school students followed an engineering student for a day on campus. She is also involved in two design clubs, the Cal Poly Space Systems and the Cal Poly Solar Car Club in which students work in teams to create various manufacturing products. Although quite involved in outside activities, she has been able to excel academically as demonstrated by her 3.9 gpa.

Rebecca Cohl
Mechanical Engineering @  Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
Scholarship from ARCO

Ms. Rebecca Cohl is a senior at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, majoring in mechanical engineering. She has been involved with SWE since she was a freshman. Last year was the mechanical engineering major chair and this year she is the outreach coordinator for high school students. She helps pay for her education by tutoring math at the University Academic Skills Center and will continue this year. She spent the past summer at Hewlett Packard in their research and development department in Corvalis, Oregon. She maintains a busy schedule, but is a dedicated student, maintaining a 3.7 gpa.

Marcy LaViolette
Engineering @  Harvey Mudd
Scholarship from Rockwell & ARCO

Ms. Marcy LaViollette is a junior at Harvey Mudd College majoring in environmental studies within the school of engineering. She is an active member of SWE, acting as the faculty liaison, coordinating professor/student events including social dinners. In addition, she helped coordinate Harvey Mudd’s WEST conference with Judy, in which high school girls are introduced into engineering and science on campus. She won an internship at E.S.R.I, a computer software designer of ArcView, a geographical Information system. This past summer, she worked for the forestry service and would like to pursue environmental engineering once she graduates.

Julia Chen
Electrical Engineering @  UCLA
Scholarship from Rockwell

Ms. Julia Chen is a sophmore at UCLA, majoring in electrical engineering. She is a Regents Scholar and although only a sophmore, is very mature and committed to her studies. She is an active member of SWE and a member of the Regent Scholar Society in which this year she will mentor incoming freshman. She is a gifted muscian, playing both the piano and cello for several years. She spent this past summer at her first job working at D-Link , a small software and internet company.

Shirley Ni
Computer Science @  USC
Scholarship from Litton Industries

Ms. Shirley Ni is a senior at USC majoring in computer science. She has been a SWE member since she was a freshman. She has served as a volunteer with USC’s Medical project of the Californas, an outreach program and is a volunteer at the LA County Medical Center. She has excelled in her major, maintaining a 3.8 gpa as well as winning one of the two IBM Research Awards for women and one of the five Microsoft National Women’s Technical Awards.

Judy Hsu
Engineering @  Harvey Mudd
Scholarship from Litton Industries

Ms. Judy Hsu is a sophmore at Harvey Mudd College and also a Harvey Mudd Merit Scholar. She is very active in SWE and currently serves as the co-president of her section. She helped organize the WEST conference which provided career guidance to female high school students, introducing them to engineering and science. She is an upward bound tutor working with underprivileged high school students as part of her work study program.

Rochelle Visaya
Industrial & Manufacturing Eng. @  Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
Lori Nicloson Scholarship from SWE

Ms. Rochelle Visaya is a senior at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo majoring in industrial engineering. She was the secretary for her section last year and is currently the SWE engineering representative. In addition to her activities in SWE, she was the vice president of her sorority and is very active in the Asian-American community at Cal Poly, organizing several Lantern Festivals on campus which celebrate Asian cultures. She spent this past summer in a co-op position at Imagation in Camarillo.

Look at some of SWE National Scholarships . 
These are not a part of those offered by SWE-LA
AND have a DIFFERENT Application and Deadline.

Scholarship Winners from SWE-LA
1999-2000

Kjerstin Easton
Kjerstin has entered her senior year at Caltech majoring in electrical engineering. At Caltech she has worked as a research assistant at the graduate aeronautical laboratories working with digital cameras as well as creating the laboratories’ website. She was a national merit scholar as well as a Caltech Merit scholar and attended the SWE convention in 1997 on an Intel grant. After returning from the convention, she reinvigorated the Caltech SWE section and was president in 1998.

Seema Shah
Seema Shah has entered her junior year at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo majoring in environmental engineering. She is the president of the Cal Poly, SLO chapter, one of the largest student sections in the country. In addition, last year she organized the Shadow an Engineer day in which 70 students followed professional engineers at 40 companies throughout California. In addition, Seema worked as a laboratory assistant and will be co-authoring a paper as a result of her laboratory work on hydrocarbons.

Cindy Sudiacal
Cindy is currently a senior at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and is our Loring Nicholson recipient. She has been an officer in the SWE section at Cal Poly for the past three years. Her involvement in SWE started when she was a sophmore in which she became a chairperson. As chair she coordinated open house activities and social events with other societies. In her junior year, she was the internal marketing director in which she increased membership by promoting society events, especially with freshman. Last year and currently she is the engineering student council representative for SWE. As Engineering rep, she coordinated the national engineers week which involved finding a speaker the last minute when the scheduled speaker cancelled.

Hayley McGuire
Hayley has entered her junior year majoring in aerospace engineering at USC. She is the current external secretary for USC’s section and was the historian the previous year. She has supported herself in her academic education by working for the USC library 20 hours per week. In addition, during her summers she was worked for The Boeing Company in Oregon on various projects including Year 2000 compliance and wing construction design. Her determination and positive attitude will allow her to excel at USC as well as in her professional career.

Julie Kathleen Mosby
Julie is a junior at Loyola Marymount majoring in electrical engineering. She is the current co-vice president of the student section at Loyola. Julie has been supporting her education since her sophmore year by working as a teaching assistant for two freshmen general engineering classes. She is also involved with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers while maintaining a 3.6 gpa. She is the only female electrical engineering student in her class and through her involvement with SWE, she has been able to meet other female engineers at Loyola as well as professional engineers.

Maricela Rodriguez
Maricela Rodriguez has entered her senior year at USC studying biomedical engineering. Last year in one of her biomedical classes, she conducted research of interleukin and its receptors. She continued her research activities this past summer while working at Merck & Co. in Pennsylvania. This was a major achievement as the internship at Merck was extremely competitive and her first experience outside of California. As the president of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers last year and an active member of SWE last year, Maricela organized some joint activities between the two organizations. She is the first person in her family to graduate from high school and attend college. She continues to support her education working as for the USC Child Care program while continuing to run a free clinic once a month in Tijuana.

Janet Hanna
Janet is currently a junior at Cal Poly Pomona studying industrial and manufacturing engineering. She is a member of SWE and the current president of the Institute of Industrial Engineers. Last year she was one of the four recipients in Southern California of the Outstanding Leadership Award from the Institute for the Advancement of Engineering. In addition, she was a volunteer tutor and note-taker for the disabled students services at Cal Poly. This past summer she worked as an engineering assistant for Southern California Edison and will continue to work for Southern California Edison throughout the school year to support her education.

Lisa Grosskopf-Boutwell
Lisa Grosskopf-Boutwell has entered her senior year at USC, studying biomedical engineering. She is a single mother of two teenagers and our re-entry recipient. Lisa has returned to college with vigor and enthusiasm. She is extremely involved in the student section and this year is coordinating the Girl Scout’s badge day with the LA and USC sections. Throughout the school year, Lisa has worked part time to support her education by tutoring math at USC. Her enthusiasm and imagination in school as well as outside of her studies will allow her to exceed as a professional engineer, exemplified by her design of a new fetal monitor which is currently undergoing a patent search.

I-Lin Liu
I-Lin Liu has entered her senior year at UCLA studying electrical engineering. Last year she worked for the UCLA Nanoelectronics research facility as a student researcher, investigating the use of atomic force microscopy and spent the summer working in the student management program at Pacific Bell. As a member of SWE, she has organized the Evening with Industry last year and will continue to coordinate the event this year. In addition, she is involved with the Grassroots Science Education Project, demonstrating science to disadvantaged children. She has continued to support her education as a lecture note taker for the past two years.

Stephanie Loete
Stephanie Loete has entered her senior year at USC majoring in electrical engineering. She is a USC merit research scholar and part of the co-op program. Recently she spent the summer in Paris studying engineering while exploring the French culture. Stephanie has been heavily involved in SWE for several years at USC. In 1998 she was the section president while working full-time at Hughes Space and Communications. Last year Stephanie created the section’s web page and currently Stephanie is coordinating the Regional Conference.

Yelizaveta Gorstko
Yelizaveta is a sophmore at Caltech majoring in computer science and applied mathematics. She is a recent immigrant to the US, having moved here only two years ago with her family and is an outstanding student at Caltech. She is extremely interested in mathematics and computers exemplified by her two websites. Her recommendations extol her academic ability and genuine interest and insight into all her subjects.

Deniz Baskent
Our last recipient is Deniz. She is a graduate student at USC working towards her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering. She is originally from Turkey and like Yelizaveta, has mastered the English language easily in a brief time span. She works as a teaching assistant at USC and had previously been a teaching assistant while earning her Master’s degree in electrical engineering in Turkey. Her acceptance to the State University in Turkey is extraordinary as they only accept the top 100 students out of one million high school graduates who take the exam. She would like to combine her electrical engineering knowledge to design and develop new medical devices.

Companies Contributing Scholarship
Northrop Grumman
Litton Industries
ARCO
Rockwell Science Foundation
Lockheed Martin Skunk Works
Cripps Crockett Connection at Re/Max Beach Cities Realty