Our mission as a chapter of PSAA is to connect PSU alumni to the University and to each other, to provide valued service to members of the Association, and to support the University’s mission of teaching, research, and service. One of the ways our chapter carries out this mission is by supporting the students from central Florida through our scholarship program. Each year we invite students to apply for our scholarship, and through our evaluation process, we select one winner for the upcoming academic year. Our committee had the privilege to meet our candidates virtually during the interview process and passed our top candidates to our membership to make their top selection. So without further delay, the PSAA Central Florida Chapter is proud to announce the 2024 scholarship recipient is Andrés del Castillo!

Andrés is in his seventh semester majoring in Mathematics. He intends to pursue a PhD in mathematics where he will then enter the DNA sequencing industry to apply artificial intelligence models to identify disease and predisposition traits genetic markers in humans. We want to congratulate Andrés for receiving this scholarship and all of his accomplishments. We encourage you to check out Andrés’ essay (button above) that speaks on the Penn State core value of discovery. We wish him the best as he enters this school year and look forward to having him and his family join us at future chapter events.

Each applicant much follow our scholarship guidelines, which includes a personal information sheet, completing an essay and an interview conducted by our scholarship sub-committee. Each are ranked by the committee with the top candidates being voted on by our membership using our chapter’s survey platform. Those rankings are then forwarded to University Park to confirm eligibility which adheres to federal requirements.

Thank you to all of those who took the time to help us select our winner including our scholarship subcommittee and members. We also want to thank all of you who continue to financially support our scholarship fund through donations, fundraisers and membership dues. It is through your generosity that we can continue to support Penn State students from central Florida like Lia.