University of Pennsylvania Interim President Wendell Pritchett today announced the recipients of the 2022 President’s Engagement, Innovation, and Sustainability Prizes. Awarded annually, the Prizes empower Penn students to design and undertake post-graduation projects that make a positive, lasting difference in the world. Each Prize-winning project will receive $100,000, as well as a $50,000 living stipend per team member.
Five seniors were named recipients of the 2022 President’s Engagement Prize. They are Rowana Miller and Manoj Simha for Cosmic Writers, and Seungkwon Son, Max Strickberger, and Sam Strickberger for College Green Ventures. Two seniors have received the President’s Innovation Prize: William Kohler Danon and Lukas Achilles Yancopoulos for Grapevine. Three seniors and two December 2021 graduates received the inaugural President’s Sustainability Prize. They are Saif Khawaja for Shinkei Systems; Sarah Beth Gleeson, Shoshana Weintraub, and Julia Yan for EcoSPIN; and Eli Moraru for The Community Grocer.
“This year’s Prize recipients have selflessly dedicated themselves to improving environmental, health, and educational outcomes for others,” said Pritchett. “From empowering young people through free creative writing education to building robotics that minimize fish waste to reducing microfiber pollution in the ocean, these outstanding and inspiring projects exemplify the vision and passion of our Penn students, who are deeply committed to making a positive difference in the world.”
The 2022 prize recipients—selected from an applicant pool of 71 people—will spend the next year implementing the following projects:
Seungkwon Son, Max Strickberger, and Sam Strickberger for College Green Ventures: Son, a double major in business analytics in the Wharton School and psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences from Allentown, Pennsylvania, along with Max Strickberger, an English major in the College, and Sam Strickberger, an intellectual history major in the College, both from Chevy Chase, Maryland, will build out College Green Ventures, an organization that aims to be a centralized hub for supporting student social entrepreneurs and creating more of them. They are mentored by Tyler Wry, an associate professor of management in the Wharton School.
William Kohler Danon and Lukas Achilles Yancopoulos for Grapevine: Danon, a history major in the College of Arts and Sciences from Miami, and Yancopoulos, an environmental studies major in the College and a bioengineering major in the School of Engineering and Applied Science from Yorktown Heights, New York, will work to increase resilience across the health care supply chain, with a particular focus on small-to-medium businesses. Grapevine builds upon Danon and Yancopoulos’s inspiring work with Pandemic Relief Supply, a venture that delivered $20 million of health care supplies to frontline workers at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. They are mentored by David F. Meaney, the Solomon R. Pollack Professor of Bioengineering and senior associate dean for Penn Engineering.
Congratulations Will and Sam!
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