Twelve Virginia Tech recipients of Stamps Scholarships will travel to Atlanta to take part in the fourth biennial Stamps Scholars National Convention.

The students, who are all in the university’s Honors College, will be among the approximately 730 Stamps Scholars nationwide who attend the convention April 7-9 at Georgia Tech.

The event is sponsored by the Stamps Family Charitable Foundation, which partners with 42 schools around the country to provide scholarships to students with strong leadership potential, academic merit, and exceptional character. Virginia Tech Stamps Scholars due to attend are:

  • Galina Belolipetski (computer science, music composition '19), of Rockville, Maryland
  • Grant Briers (finance ’20), of Huntington, West Virginia
  • Anna Broshkevitch (microbiology ’19), of Purcellville, Virginia
  • Wolfe Glick (computational modeling and data analysis ’18), of McLean, Virginia
  • Casey Jung (general engineering ’20), of Adamstown, Maryland
  • Jessica King (communication, international studies ’18), of Stafford, Virginia
  • Aimee Maurais (mathematics, computational modeling and data analysis ’19), of Wake Forest, North Carolina
  • Grant McMillan (general engineering ’19), of Virginia Beach, Virginia
  • Moira Miller (physics, Spanish ’18), of Arlington, Virginia
  • Dana Mulligan (agricultural sciences ’19), of Falls Church, Virginia
  • Jake Norton (industrial and systems engineering ’19), of Ellicott City, Maryland
  • Rebecah Storms (mathematics, music, ’19), of Wytheville, Virginia

“Conferences can be a little stuffy, but it’s definitely not like that,” King said of her experience at a previous Stamps Scholars National Convention. “We were split up into different groups, which we got to choose, so we were learning about things that are important to us. I learned about social justice by going to the Civil Rights Museum in Atlanta and hearing from others who were doing good work.”

The Stamps Scholars program was launched in 2006 by E. Roe Stamps IV and Penny Stamps and has grown in size and national prestige. For this academic year, 232 Stamps Scholars were selected from more than 400,000 applicants across the program’s partner schools.

In 2014, the Stamps Family Charitable Foundation launched a partnership with Virginia Tech to provide scholarships to undergraduate students with a $1.25 million grant that was matched with a $1 million gift from Virginia Tech alumnus Dave Calhoun and $250,000 in Virginia Tech funding.

“The Stamps Scholarship was the deciding factor in my decision to come here,” King said. “Tech was my No. 1 school because of the energy here and being able to double major and do the things I want to do. The Stamps Scholarship was definitely a blessing, because it made it possible for me to go to my first choice.”

The Stamps Scholarship was also “a really big factor” in the decision of Dana Mulligan to attend Virginia Tech. She is scheduled to give a speech on sustainable agriculture at the convention.

Stamps Scholarships provide full tuition, fees, and room and board for up to four or five years depending on the student’s course of study, in addition to an enrichment fund to allow the scholars to take part in unique, experiential learning opportunities for academic and professional development. These funds are often used on study abroad or to take advantage of internship or research opportunities.

As part of her Stamps Scholarship, Mulligan will be living in the Honors Residential Commons for her four years at Virginia Tech. She says being around Stamps Scholars who have different interests and are at varying stages of their educational journeys has been highly beneficial – and is part of the reason she’s looking forward to the conference.

“I’m really excited to meet Stamps Scholars from other schools around the country,” Mulligan said. “I learn about a lot of interesting opportunities from people with a lot of diverse interests who are doing really cool projects. It’s really motivating when you see these new ideas coming from other students.”

The Stamps Foundation and its partners provide scholarship support to 930 scholars, with the projected goal to help educate 5,000 scholars in total. There are 455 Stamps Scholar alumni around the world who continue to benefit from various professional and social networking opportunities.

Written by Rich Polikoff

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