Office of Merit Scholarships, Fellowships & Awards (OMSFA)

I am a senior studying Linguistics and Speech & Hearing Sciences with a minor in Spanish. My specific interests include bilingualism and language development. I am currently working as a SparkLingTM Spanish preschool teacher for UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Science (I-LABS). Through this experience, I have gotten to witness language acquisition in real-time, and I hope to carry this knowledge forward to my future career as a speech-language pathologist. I have also carried out research with the Language Development & Processing (LDP) Lab at UW, studying how the language children hear influences their vocabulary and language learning. These education and research opportunities have only increased my interest in becoming a speech-language pathologist in order to serve the students in our Washington state public schools and help all students receive the best educational opportunities possible. Outside of academics, I love to explore many various activities. I attend and serve at a local church and their on-campus fellowship, Common Ground; this has been a central part of how I’ve grown in faith in Jesus and as a person throughout college. I’ve also had the great privilege of being a member of the Husky Marching Band for the past four years, including serving as trumpet section leader this last year. My other favorite activities include playing sports (football, softball, volleyball, and taekwondo), hiking or walking in our beautiful city, or reading interesting and fun books! I applied for this scholarship in order to help me finish my undergraduate education and save for graduate school, which I will be starting at UW in the fall, and I’m incredibly grateful to have the honor of receiving it! I can’t wait to continue my education in the fall as a life-long Dawg!