LANL Director Charles McMillan visits with Mesa Vista High School graduate Jeanette Varela who is the first in her family to attend college, and Pecos High School graduate Nicolette Gonzales, during Monday’s kick-off of the Los Alamos Laboratory Employee’s Scholarship Fund campaign. The students are among 73 winners of $419,500 awarded in 2014 scholarships. Photo by Richard C. Robinson/LANL
Los Alamos High School senior Alexandr Wang is one of two Gold Scholars. He will receive $20,000 over four years. Photo by Richard C. Robinson/LANL
Los Alamos High School senior Alexandra Berl is a Bronze Scholar and will receive $4,000 over four years. ‘Thank you to the community of Los Alamos for allowing us to flourish into fully blossoming nerds,’ she said at Monday’s event. Photo by Richard C. Robinson/LANLStudents from across Northern New Mexico attended Monday’s LANL Employees Scholarship Fund kickoff at the Oppenheimer Study Center.
“I was over the moon … I’m so beyond grateful,” said Eliana Griego of learning that she is a Pete Domenici Scholar and will receive $10,000 over four years.
Griego has a 4 plus GPA and is a senior at McCurdy Charter School in Espanola and her class valedictorian. She will attend NMSU in the fall and aspires to become a doctor.
Her parents attended Monday’s event and expressed their gratitude to the LANL Employees Scholarship Fund contributors, LANS and the LANL Foundation.
“We are very blessed and pleased that Eliana was selected for this scholarship – she has worked very hard,” her father said.
Twenty students received Director Funded Internships this year. Los Alamos High School senior Maria Jaleh McTeigue is one of them. She is a Bronze Scholar who plans to attend Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts to major in communications and minor in neuro science.
“I was so excited, and my scholarship comes with an opportunity to intern at the Lab,” she said. “The past three generations of my family have worked at the Lab so this is a blessing and will help me attend Mount Holyoke.”
Alexandra Hehlen, a senior at Los Alamos High School, is a Bronze Scholar who will receive $4,000 over four years. She will attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall to pursue her dream of becoming a global correspondent. She also has been selected as a Robertson Scholar at UNC.
“I feel really honored to have received it (LANL Scholarship) especially since I get to intern at the Lab where my dad works,” Hehlen said. “I will be interning at the Richard P. Feynman Center for Innovation.”
Her father Marcus Hehlen said it’s great to be afforded all of these opportunities for the students and the money will help with his daughter’s expenses on the “other side of the country.”
Hehlen mother, Bettina Hehlen said, “It doesn’t come easily for Alexandra … she has to work at it … we are really proud of her.”
Her mother, Jolyn McTeigue, told the Los Alamos Daily Post that she is very proud of her daughter.
“She is my first born … she worked very hard and I am glad to see her rewarded,” she said.
Los Alamos High School senior Daniel Ahrens is a Bronze Scholar who intends to major in environmental science at Berkley this fall.
“I was definitely elated to receive this scholarship,” he said. “It will allow me some financial freedom to pursue more enrichment opportunities and this summer I will have an opportunity to work in the EES Division at the Lab as an intern.”
Scholarship Program Officer Tony Fox of the LANL Foundation served as emcee for Monday’s event. The LANL Foundation is the organization that administers the scholarship fund and ensures that all donor contributions go directly to student awards. All donations are tax-deductible.
Since 1999, the fund has awarded $4.5 million to help students in seven Northern New Mexico counties achieve their dreams of attending college. Funding for the Los Alamos Employees’ Scholarship Fund comes from donations by LANL employees and a matching amount from Los Alamos National Security, LLC.
Scholarship contributions may be made at www.lanlfoundation.org through June 20.
The 2014 Scholarship Recipients:
Platinum Scholar: $30,000
($7,500 per year for four years)
- Raymond Fasano, Bernalillo High School
Gold Scholars: $20,000
($5,000 per year for four years)
- Greta Miller, Santa Fe High School
- Alexandr Wang, Los Alamos High School
Silver Scholars: $10,000
($2,500 per year for four years)
- Sarah Colvin, New Mexico School for the Arts
- Na Hyun Park, St. Michael’s High School
- Jesse Yelvington, Pojoaque Valley High School
Domenici Scholars: $10,000
($2,500 per year for four years)
- Angelica Aragon, Mora High School
- Nicolette Gonzales, Pecos High School
- Eliana Griego, McCurdy High School
- Zoie Hensley, Taos High School
- Leonard Horan III, Escalante High School
- Amanda Mercer, Los Alamos High School
- Milo Ventura, V. Sue Cleveland High School
Leadership Scholars: $10,000
($2,500 per year for four years)
- Ju Hyun Lee, Los Alamos High School
- Adrianna Martinez, Espanola Valley High School
- Ryan Toma, Taos High School
- Issa Wilson, Taos High School
Bronze Scholars: $4,000
($1,000 per year for up to four years)
- Elisa Abeyta, Mora High School
- Daniel Ahrens, Los Alamos High School
- Andrew Baca, Santa Fe High School
- George Barnum, Los Alamos High School
- Alexandra Berl, Los Alamos High School
- James Buchanan, Santa Fe Preparatory School
- Cora Cliburn, Desert Academy School
- Patrick Denne, Penasco High School
- Jackson Dooling, Santa Fe Preparatory School
- Mohit Dubey, New Mexico School for the Arts
- Eric Dunn, St. Michael’s High School
- Deborah Duran, Santa Fe Community College
- Rosemary Elliott Smith, Monte Del Sol School
- Brianna Farrier, St. Michael’s High School
- Shelby Fellows, Los Alamos High School
- Bonnie Fortier-Shultz, Santa Fe High School
- Leticia Gomez, Pojoaque Valley High School
- Helenea Gonzales, West Las Vegas High School
- Zachary Grand, Santa Fe High School
- Alexandra Hehlen, Los Alamos High School
- Colin Hemez, Los Alamos High School
- Melissa Herrera, Espanola Valley High School
- Jennifer Hsu, Taos High School
- Nathan L`Esperance, Las Vegas Robertson High School
- Aidan Landen, Santa Fe High School
- Michael Landgraf, Taos High School
- Cheyenne Law, Pojoaque Valley High School
- Jacob Lutz, The ASK Academy
- Melanie Maldonado, Taos High School
- Joylynn Martinez, Pojoaque Valley High School
- Erin Mavis, Santa Fe Community College
- Avery May, SFCC/Central New Mexico College
- Maria McTeigue, Los Alamos High School
- Kyla Mermejo-Varga, Santa Fe Indian School
- Carson Miller, Santa Fe High School
- Leah Montoya, West Las Vegas High School
- Mirelle Naud, Los Alamos High School
- Awa Ndiaye, Monte Del Sol School
- Eliana Otero-Bell, Santa Fe High School
- Nathan Phillips, Los Alamos High School
- Jacob Ratzlaff, West Las Vegas High School
- Jordan Readyhough, St. Michael’s High School
- Alannah Sanchez, McCurdy High School
- Karissa Sandoval, Escalante High School
- Marlon Savinelli, Moreno Valley High School
- Anna Sones, Academy for Technology and the Classics
- Kerry Song, Los Alamos High School
- Allyssa Tedder, Los Alamos High School
- Lauren TenCate, Los Alamos High School
- Jessie Tietgens, Cibola High School
- Jeanette Varela, Mesa Vista High School
- Jing Xie, Los Alamos High School
