Two first-year SFU students are putting our university’s motto of “engaging the world” to practice, as each have been awarded a $60,000 scholarship for their community service while in high school. Now environmental science major Deven Azevedo and biomedical physiology major Andy Zeng were awarded the Schulich Leader Scholarship at the end of November.
The scholarship targets recently graduated high school students who are heavily involved in their community and who intend to enroll in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, or mathematics) faculty. Winners are selected based on social involvement or business acumen, as well as academic excellence or financial needs.
Selected from a pool of 1,000 nominees, Azevedo and Zeng are two of the total 40 Canadian winners. SFU is one of 20 participating Canadian universities in the Schulich Leader Scholarship, in addition to five in Israel.
For both Azevedo and Zeng, their commitments to their communities were fueled by environmental and humanitarian interests. During high school, Azevedo raised $45,000 in monetary and in-kind donations to construct a 40-bed community garden in Fort Langley, which will soon have the possibility of providing produce for a cafe in Fort Langley run by Kwantlen First Nation people.
Azevedo also initiated a composting system at Langley Fine Arts School, where he attended high school. Now at SFU, he is the vice-president of SFU 350, a club that raises awareness about SFU’s role in mitigating climate change. The group has most recently called for the Board of Governors to stop investing SFU’s endowment fund in fossil fuels and to eventually divest from fossil fuel companies.
Azevedo’s personal interest lies in resource management and issues, particularly “where the economics of large natural resource extraction companies appears to be in conflict with society progressing into a sustainable one.” He hopes to go into environmental law after graduating.
Biomedical physiology major Andy Zeng raised $5,000 for his high school’s Red Cross Club to build a well in Kenya, and has continued his work with the Red Cross at SFU by founding an SFU Red Cross Club. Zeng is also part of Phi Delta Epsilon, a fraternity for medical students, with whom he regularly organizes trips to the blood donation clinic.
As a high school student, Zeng was a research assistant to SFU associate professor Julian Christian, whose research is focussed on the genetic and physiological mechanisms that create diversity within species.
Christian was quick to sing his former assistant’s praises to The Peak. “I’m delighted to hear that Andy is receiving this award, but I’m not surprised. As a high school student volunteering in my lab, he was incredibly quick to pick up concepts and displayed maturity beyond his years,” said Christian. “He’ll do well in research if that is what he pursues, and I’d love to have him back in my lab as a graduate student.”
