Congratulations to Our Award Winning CUPPA Students

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Congratulations to our award winning CUPPA students recognized over the past year for their successes in academics, leadership, ingenuity and/or creativity! (If your award and name is missing from the list, please send the award information to CUPPA@uic.edu so we can recognize you!)

  • Daniel Kumapayi, MPA student, won a $2,000 Comcast community impact award for his idea, Àkójọpọ̀, a service to license African music and make it more widely available to the public. The competition was part of UIC’s second Blaze Venture Challenge. Read more at this webpage.
  • The Dean’s Academic Excellence Scholarship was presented to Margarita Arango, Public Policy, Carter Neubauer, Urban Studies; and Finn Downs, Urban Studies.
  • The U.S. State Department Benjamin A. Gilman scholarships to study abroad were presented to Urban Studies students, Sylvia Waechter and Sean Haram.
  • The Voyager Scholarship for Public Service from the Obama Foundation was awarded to Urban Studies student, Haniyyah Thomas.
  • Haniyyah Thomas was also recognized as Student of the Year by the Great Lakes Affiliate of Colleges and University Residence Halls.
  • UPP students Bailey Foster and Grace Li won the award for best student poster at the Illinois GIS Association (ILGISA) conference and Urban Studies students Sean O'RourkeRebecca Perelman, and Wylie Crowther won 3rd place in the undergraduate student poster competition at the Association of American Geographers (AAG) West Lakes Division.
  • Feliciti CrowderHaley Ventura, and Fatemeh Noorizadehsalout were awarded the Executive Partnership Scholarship through the WTS Greater Chicago Area chapter for the 2023-2024 academic year.
  • The George Krambles Scholarship at the Urban Transportation Center was presented to Nicholas Riehle, MUPP student and John Rodgers, MUPP ’23.
  • The Ciccarone Public Finance Award in the PPMA Department went to Thao Pham, PhD student.
  • MUPP students Maggie EickhoffHaley McDonnellElizabeth Miller, and Grace Li were chosen as finalists in the 2024 APA Student Planning and Design Competition and presented their Plan at the 2024 APA National Planning Conference in Minneapolis.
  • The Soot Travel Support Fund providing assistance for conference participation was presented to Maggie EickhoffHaley McDonnellElizabeth MillerGrace Li, and Sean O’Rourke.