Scholar & Alumni Awards

The Foundation offers two monetary awards for Cooke Scholars and Alumni: The Undergraduate Award in Honor of Dennis I. Belcher and the Matthew J. Quinn Prize.

The awards are described on the Foundation website and separate guidelines are provided, as nomination and selection differ for the awards.

You can find more information about previous award recipients below.

2025 Undergraduate Scholar Award Recipient - Matthew Werneken

Matthew Werneken is a 2015 Young Scholar, 2020 College Scholar, and 2025 Graduate Scholar. As an undergrad, Matthew began to consider his mechanical engineering education as a toolset for answering astronomical science questions. Matthew designed, manufactured, and calibrated the first complete Micro-CHaS prototype, with a successful “first light” observation of the Ring Nebula in Columbia’s rooftop observatory that July. This work encouraged him to take ownership in developing new astronomy instrumentation.

A month later in August 2022, Matthew founded a student-led satellite team at Columbia. He recruited 20+ student teammates and developed an initial science concept from the Micro-CHaS prototype and first authored a $300k grant proposal to the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative by November. This proposal was successfully funded in March 2023, providing a 2027 NASA launch for Columbia’s first student-led satellite. This mission has become LIONESS and will provide insights on galaxy formation and disk-halo exchange, and ultimately help solve astronomy’s key “missing baryon problem”. In addition to his leadership within LIONESS, Matthew has also been instrumental in building an aerospace curriculum alongside a professor and another student.

2025 Undergraduate Scholar Award Recipient - Dima Yanovsky

Dmytro (Dima) Yanovskyi is a 2022 Undergraduate Transfer Scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology studying computer science. In 2022, while Dima was adjusting to his new chapter as a transfer student at MIT, he was also watching the war in Ukraine take place in his hometown. After meeting another Ukrainian student at MIT, they co-founded Ukraine Leadership and Technology Academy (ULTA).

The purpose of ULTA is to empower and inspire the next generation of Ukrainian leaders by empowering them with technical knowledge, taught by MIT students. Their goal is to equip Ukrainian high schoolers with the skills, knowledge, and confidence they need to rebuild Ukraine into a thriving, European nation after the war. The mission of ULTA is to provide a tuition-free yearlong educational program for talented Ukrainian high school students in grades 9 and 10. He shared, “Looking ahead 5-10 years, I envision ULTA becoming a well-established program under MIT MISTI's umbrella.”

2024 Undergraduate Scholar Award Recipient - Leah Basaria

Leah Basaria is a 2022 Undergraduate Transfer Scholar from the University of Central Florida. Leah’s unifying purpose for her achievements is in post-incarceration reform and suicide prevention. Within two months of her summer 2023 internship teaching at Osceola County Jail, Leah started a nonprofit re-entry program that supports incarcerated individuals as they become returning citizens to access the resources they need to live a healthier and more meaningful life. The preexisting re-entry program at Osceola County Jail limited eligibility to males with no violent felony convictions. This inspired Leah to create a curriculum and focus primarily on the female population and males who have violent felony convictions. She led three classes a day three times a week at Osceola Jail from June to October 2023.

In the jail, around 25 of Leah’s students earned their GED after she encouraged all of them toward that program. She is currently evaluating her re-entry program through her honors thesis and plans to expand into other county jails in Central Florida. Leah wants to change America's approach to "corrections" in a sustainable way that emphasizes treatment and advocacy versus punishment.

2025 Quinn Prize Recipient - Katya Echazarreta

Katya is a 2016 Undergraduate Transfer Scholar and a 2021 Graduate Scholar at Johns Hopkins University where she received her Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 2022, Katya was selected out of 7,000 applicants from over 120 countries for her first mission to Space – becoming the first Mexican woman in Space, and at the time, the youngest American woman in Space.

Upon her return, Katya decided to work in Mexico to develop a robust Space infrastructure for the nation. Fundacion Espacial (fundacionespacial.com) is a non-profit organization that aims to provide direct access across different stages of a developing Space Industry. The Foundation operates under the understanding that once the space industry becomes regulated for the nation, those who will benefit the most are those prepared to do so. By providing specialized educational opportunities for not only Mexico but Latin America as a whole, Katya and her team are ensuring the near future involvement of our communities. These opportunities have already impacted over 5,000 individuals directly through two main flagship programs. The Air & Space training program offers full scholarships to students ages 13-18. During this program, they learn about a range of different topics that currently exist within the space industry so they can begin to familiarize themselves with the existing possibilities to be able to make informed decisions about their future career.

The Personas Espaciales program is designed for people 18+ who are college students or practicing scientists and engineers who are interested in making the shift to space, but don't have the knowledge base required to do so. This program brings international experts from the top Space agencies and companies to Mexico to provide technical expertise and eye-opening perspectives. In November of 2024, the President of Mexico announced Katya’s involvement in what can become the first All Latin American crew on a mission to Space to occur as early as 2027. In her words, “This project is the direct result of almost a year's worth of conversations, negotiations, and agreements where I managed to turn an opportunity being offered to me personally (a general mission) into an opportunity where Mexico could be involved as a nation.” 

2024 Quinn Prize Recipient - Mario Mutis

Mario Mutis is a 2012 Graduate Scholar from the University of Florida. In recent years, Mario has been working on reviving an ancient metal casting technique native to his home country of Colombia. After working over five years on refining this technique, in 2022 he traveled back to Colombia and spoke with his community leaders, elders, and the leader of education, to propose that they create a workshop where he can teach this metal casting technique to their communities starting in the town of Sesquile, then Chia, Suba, Cota and finally Bosa. Mario’s efforts have profoundly affected the lives of the Muysca people in the towns of Sesquile, Chia, and Suba, offering them newfound autonomy in the creation of their material culture.

To date, Mario’s work has positively impacted over 122 families and clans and influenced his many students at Santa Fe College. As Mario evolves as an artist, he increasingly recognizes the transformative power of art in society and its pivotal role in expressing our shared humanity.

2023 Undergraduate Scholar Award Recipient - Francesca Raoelsion

Francesca Raoelison is a 2018 Undergraduate Transfer Scholar who attended Brown University. A leader in emotional abuse awareness and mental health prevention with a background in Sociology and Entrepreneurship, Francesca has driven initiatives in Madagascar and beyond. Francesca founded Omena, a youth-led, and youth-centered organization that is breaking the cycle of emotional abuse through training, preventive evidence-based social-emotional education, and community support.

2023 Quinn prize recipient - ousmane kabre

Ousmane Kabré is a 2013 Undergraduate Transfer Scholar who attended the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting. In 2015, while still a student, Ousmane founded his first non-profit organization called Leading Change Africa, which provides educational and leadership opportunities to students from Africa. Ousmane recently added to his passion for equitable education by creating an ed-tech startup called YAM Education, which is a self-paced platform designed to equip students with the skills and on-demand certifications they need to compete in today's work environment.

Ousmane believes that beyond the implementation of an improved educational system in his home country of Burkina Faso, he can contribute to improving the country’s economy through this investment in their citizens. He looks forward to helping build the future of education and creating a new century of promise for Burkina Faso and beyond.

2022 Undergraduate Scholar Award Recipient - Denisse Cordova Carrizales

Denisse Cordova Carrizales is a 2018 College Scholar who attended Harvard University. In November 2021, Denisse coauthored an article titled, “Superconductivity in a quintuple-layer square-planar nickelate,” that was published in Nature Materials for the discovery of square-planar nickelates as a new family of superconducting materials. Denisee coauthored two additional research projects: “Antiferromagnetic metal phase in an electron-doped rare-earth nickelate” for publication in Nature Physics, and “Electronic properties of Ndn+1NinO3n+1 Ruddlesden-Popper nickelate thin films.” These three publications explore different aspects of scientific discovery of a square-planar nickelates as a new family of superconducting materials.

In 2022, Denisse was named a Harvard Quantum Initiative Research Fellow, and won the Herschel Smith Award - a research grant for undergraduates identified for their talent and promise as likely contributors to the next generation of scientific research by a Harvard faculty review committee, and will be a co-author on a scientific paper for work she did during 2020 and 2021 at MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Denisse plans to become a scientist and advocate for safe, renewable energy, specifically nuclear fusion energy, for marginalized communities in the face of climate change.

2022 Quinn Prize Recipient - Thomas Thekkekandam

Thomas Thekkekandam is a 2006 Cooke Graduate Scholar who attended Duke University to pursue both his MBA and JD degrees. He is the co-founder, CFO, and head of strategy for Green Top Farms, a small food service business with a social mission based in New York City. He and his co-founder established the organization to build a more sustainable food system, which supports local food producers and brings fresh, seasonal food to the consumers of New York City. Thomas is most proud of the work the company did during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first quarter of 2020, Thomas developed relationships with federal and local government agencies, homeless shelters, and food pantries to expand Green Top's contracting and nonprofit work. Ultimately, they delivered over 1 million meals to the city's homebound elderly. Through Thomas's leadership and his team's work, Green Top has contributed more than $3 million in total revenue directly to local partner farms and kept their entire staff employed throughout the pandemic.

2020 Quinn prize recipient - william tarpeh

Dr. William Tarpeh is a former Cooke Young Scholar, College Scholar, and Graduate Scholar. He earned his Bachelor of Science from Stanford University and his PhD in Environmental Engineering from University of California at Berkeley. William is now an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University, where his Tarpeh Lab develops and evaluates novel approaches to convert wastewater into resources to increase access to sanitation and fertilizer and protect the environment. In his first two years there, he has published eight peer-reviewed articles, recruited seven PhD students and two post-doctoral fellows to his research lab, been awarded one patent, and won 11 competitive research grants to fund his research. Since 2018, William has expanded the reach of his original work in Kenya to now tackle challenges in Senegal and Denmark, natural disaster relief in Malawi and Mozambique, and nitrogen-recovery wastewater treatment for 600,000 residents in South Africa. He is pursuing pathways to commercialize his research with the support of the Stanford Faculty Entrepreneurship Leadership Program, while he continues to mentor students and champion their access to transformative opportunities.

2019 Quinn Prize Recipient - Monirath Siv

Monirath “Moni” Siv is a 2009 Undergraduate Transfer Scholar who graduated from the University of Washington. Inspired by his experiences as a Teach for America educator, in 2017, Moni launched Teach for Cambodia (TFC) in an effort to build a local movement of leaders for educational excellence and equity in his home country. During the next two years, Moni raised over 1.2 million dollars in long-term funding commitments and placed 34 Teaching Fellows in classrooms serving 5,000 children across Cambodia. He is poised to scale up to 100 Fellows that will reach 15,000 marginalized students in 30 different schools. In addition, Moni has designed the first teacher education curriculum with the Royal University of Phnom Penh for a master’s program to attract candidates to the teaching profession. Moni’s passionate commitment to providing educational opportunity for Cambodia’s 3.5 million children has won him strong support from the country’s Ministry of Education. Yet even Moni knows there is no overnight solution to the challenge ahead of him. He’s said that “creating change in public education requires a marathon mindset, a lot of patience, less enemies and more friends.”

2017 Quinn Prize Recipient - Emily Hedin

Emily Hedin, a 2009 Graduate Scholar, received her Master’s degree in international develop from the University of Oxford. In 2008, she partnered with local leaders in the Via El Salvador section of Lima Peru to co-found the nonprofit Building Dignity. Their mission is to enhance education, train local leaders, and facilitate neighborhood-led development.

2016 Quinn Prize Recipient - Olya Yarychkivska

Olga Yarychkivska is a 2007 Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholar and 2012 Cooke Graduate Scholar. She is currently pursuing a PhD in genetics and development at Columbia University. Olga is co-founder and board member of Razom, a non-profit volunteer organization aiming to develop civil society and democracy in Ukraine.