Forbes “30 Under 30” Selects UNCF STEM Scholar
As a finalist in the 2016 Intel Science Talent Search, Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna discovered that adding a nanoclay ingredient called attapulgite to cement slurries improves the undersea cement seals that keep offshore oil wells from leaking.
Each year, Forbes Magazine lists 30 students and other young talent—30 years old or younger—who are “reimagining what our energy future might look like. Every year, we scour the country for promising young people working on energy issues. We seek them out in everywhere from major oil companies to university research labs to Silicon Valley venture capitalist firms. We then pass on a shortlist to three judges to get their input on who they think deserves to end up on the final list.”
The 18-year-old Harvard University student from Long Island, NY, was awarded a UNCF Fund II STEM scholarship last spring and attended our STEM Scholars orientation weekend in Atlanta, GA July 2016. The scholarship board recognized her stellar potential immediately. She was one of the top students in her high school class and her essays exuded the passion she had for the sciences. Uwamanzu-Nna was valedictorian of her high school class and had been accepted by all eight Ivy League schools, in addition to Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.