FELLOWSHIP WINNERS
Past Winners
SILA has a long history of awarding Fellowships to deserving students. Included here are the past recipients.
Corinne Zahlis
"My ultimate goal is to become a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist for foster youth."
Corinne is a first year MPH student at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health in the Department of Health Policy and Management. She also holds a BS in Biology and Community Health from Tufts University.
Corinne has a passion for empowering women's and young people’s health choices, which is reflected in both her professional and volunteer experiences. In addition to her health policy studies, Corinne is involved with reproductive health and health education organizations at UCLA.
Prior to returning to graduate school, Corinne coordinated a mobile vision program for preschoolers at underserved schools in the Bay Area, and worked as a health educator in Boston. In her (limited) free time, Corinne enjoys baking for her family and friends and running half marathons.
Lucero Noyola
Lucero Noyola is a Mexican American first-gen graduate student at USC pursuing her Masters in Social Work.
As a young teenager, she experienced the juvenile justice and foster care systems. Foster care helped her turn her life around. She fell in love with school, and though she made mistakes that led to her becoming a single teenage mother, she fought to obtain her high school diploma and enroll in college.
She utilized welfare benefits, financial aid, and probation foster care supports to survive while she pursued higher education. Lucero is now a student researcher and advocate.
She is the lead researcher for the Beyond Foster Care Study, and core member of the Beyond Foster Care Policy Campaign. She is the Program Coordinator for Echoes of Hope, and Social Work Intern for an interdisciplinary dental and social work program called the Child Health and Maintenance Program at USC.
Dr. Adrienne Meier (2012). A graduate of Northwest Nazarene University, Adrienne completed her MA degree in Clinical Psychology at Fuller Graduate School, where she is obtained her Ph.D. Degree in Clinical Psychology.
Adrienne has a deep commitment toward those who are not only of lower socioeconomic status, but also have physical and or mental needs. As she says, “I love working with individuals from a variety of setting, such as medical psychiatric and forensic facilities.” Included in these is City of Hope Medical Center, Patton State Hospital, UCLA Longevity Center, and prison facilities.
Jennie Giron (2012). An outstanding student, Jennie graduated magna cum laude from New Mexico State, followed by her master's degree in Education from Arizona State with a 3.9 GPA. Jennie next spent two years working for Teach for America. As a 7th grade math teacher, she learned to cope with a lack of essential supplies such as chairs, desks, and even books. Overcoming these obstacles, Jennie was able to increase her students’ knowledge by 3 grade levels.
From this experience, she began to question what it takes for a good leader to become a great leader. This quest led her to Claremont Graduate University where she is currently studying Positive Organizational Psychology as she works toward an MBA.