Seven College Seniors Are Class of 2021 President’s Engagement and Innovation Prize Winners

Penn Arts & Sciences

Seven College of Arts & Sciences seniors are among the students named by Penn President Amy Gutmann as recipients of the 2021 President’s Engagement Prize and President’s Innovation Prize. Awarded annually, the prizes empower Penn students to design and undertake post-graduation projects that make a positive, lasting difference in the world. Each winning project will receive $100,000, as well as a $50,000 living stipend per team member. The prizes are the largest of their kind in higher education.

These College students won President Engagement Prizes:

  • Elizabeth Carson Eckhard, Natalia Rommen, and Sarah Simon for Project HOPE, which addresses the lack of legal and reentry support to incarcerated Philadelphians.
  • Martin Leet, along with Penn Engineering senior Leah Voytovich, for Maji, a project that will install a solar-powered water tank and offer training in a settlement camp in Uganda.
  • Christina Miranda and Amanda Moreno for Be Body Positive Philly, which will address eating disorder risk among Philadelphia high school students.

Yiwen Li, a senior at the College and Wharton, won a President’s Innovation Prize with Wharton senior Aris Saxena. Their project, Mobility, will provide patients across the globe access to healthcare in their homes.

“This year’s prize-winning projects are inspiring and are important examples of putting a Penn education to work to meet urgent and important human needs in local, national, and global communities: from addressing eating disorder risk among our city’s youth to improving the experiences of patients and frontline health care workers to aiding in the global refugee crisis through clean water and agricultural training,” says Gutmann. “The recipients embody Penn’s core commitment to leadership through service, a most vital and urgent calling during these challenging times.”

Student recipients will spend the next year implementing their projects. To read more about the projects, click here.

 

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