To date, we have awarded over $1.85 million in scholarships.
Each year, the Emily Couric Leadership Forum recognizes 11 young women leaders each year - one senior nominated from each area high school in Charlottesville and Albemarle County - who are making an impact in their communities. In 2025, the Forum will award $250,000 in scholarships.
A Selection Committee comprised of community leaders interviews the nominees and makes the final selection.
Past Winners: Where Are They Now?
2022 Kaymin Hester
Kaymin Hester of Charlottesville High School received the $50,000 Emily Couric Leadership Scholarship in 2022. Hester, who plans to become a neurosurgeon and author, is deciding between several top colleges. She hopes her prolific writing and passion for volunteerism will continue to inspire her community with a sense of curiosity and adventure about fields ranging from music to medical technology.
2021 Aditi Prakash
Aditi says her best attributes are grit, empathy and optimism! She started an anti-racist club at her high school and also a program for older students to mentor elementary school students during the pandemic summer. She herself mentored two Spanish speaking children. Aditi also created a program that distributed 200 free STEM kits to disadvantaged students with a goal of fostering love for and confidence in science. In the 9th grade she attended UVA’s Bio-Medical Camp for Girls and was so inspired she decided to pay it forward and agreed to intern there last summer. She was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease just last spring and invited her GI doctor to be a guest speaker at the camp. Aditi is attending Stanford and plans to become an educational policy maker.
2020 Isabelle Pardue
Isabelle Pardue writes, “I may not know exactly what my future entails, but one thing is certain, I’ll be working to change the lives of millions of people worldwide affected by mental disorders. My vision is to combine the missions of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation to alleviate the suffering caused by mental illness with the awarding of grants that contribute to scientific breakthroughs.” Isabelle created an online business called “Happicases” selling phone cases with positive messages and quotes on them. She gave a percentage of the proceeds to Region Ten, which serves thousands of local people experiencing mental health or substance abuse challenges.
Isabelle is also concerned about the emotional wellbeing of young women who are troubled about body image. She tackled that subject through her science fair project, where she sought to prove that you don’t need to look perfect to be beautiful. Others warned her she’d never make regionals with her topic, but she made it all the way to the science fair nationals. She took special pleasure proving to herself that passion and dedication can overcome nearly anything. She has college acceptance offers from Colgate, the University of Richmond, the University of Virginia, and Davidson and her interests include the study of economics, physics and neuroscience.
Photo: Vice News
2019 Zyahna Bryant
Zyahna Bryant attends the University of Virginia. She has been featured in The New York Times, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Forbes and on Vice News, PBS, CNN, and BET.
Zyahna is a student activist, community organizer, and author. She focuses her work on how race contributes to the achievement gap and educational inequity. Zyahna works to connect students of color with resources to overcome barriers to achievement. She also organizes youth leaders around the conversation about race, space, and monuments. As a freshman, she founded the Black Student Union at Charlottesville High School and helped initiate the petition to reconsider the place of Confederate monuments in the Charlottesville community. Bryant published Reclaim, a collection of poetry and essays written about activism and the experience of black girlhood, received the Princeton Prize in Race Relations for her advocacy work, and received the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center’s student prize.
2018 Meg Richey
Meg attends Stanford University, where she is a member of Cap and Gown, a women’s leadership group and the oldest continuously operating student group at Stanford. Meg is a prospective computer science major and already has a patent pending for an invention of her own called the Morris Orthotic. She designed it after her beloved school bus driver, Mr. Morris, died after his foot was amputated due to a diabetic ulcer. Her device could become the standard of care to help prevent amputations and deaths from diabetic foot ulcers.
2017 Ayoade Balogun
Ayoade attends Stanford University. She is a member of the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and plays in the Cardinal Calypso, Stanford’s premier steel pan band. She also served as the musical director and conductor for Stanford’s presentation of Chicago.
2016 Olivia Vande Woude
Olivia is a senior at William & Mary double majoring in History and French & Francophone Studies. At the College, she is an Honors Thesis Fellow, member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and initiate of the W&M Women’s Society of 1918. Olivia has previously served as the Co-President of Women in Business, the Co-Editor of the Gallery Literary Magazine, a member of the Howard J. Busbee Finance Academy, and a tutor for adult learners in Williamsburg. She received the Charles Center Summer Scholarship to study joke books in Marie Antoinette’s private library, the Lyon Gardiner Tyler Rising Senior Award, the Donald B. Irwin Memorial Scholarship, and the Lyon Gardiner Tyler Minor Grant for Undergraduate Research. She was also inducted into the Phi Alpha Theta Society for students of History and the Alpha Delta Gamma Medieval and Renaissance Studies Honorary Society. After graduating from William & Mary, Olivia will pursue her passion for equity research at T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.
2015 Keyri Lopez-Godoy
Keyri graduated from Eastern Mennonite University with a degree in Elementary Education. During her time at EMU, she was a founding member of the DACA Dialogue Planning Committee, bringing awareness to the campus about DACA and a range of immigration policies impacting people across the country. Chosen by her peers to speak at commencement, Keyri was one of ten students of color receiving a cord in the Donning of the Kente ceremony recognizing outstanding achievement. Keyri now teaches elementary school in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
2014 Carman Drake
Carman Drake graduated from Yale University with a degree in Global Affairs. During her time at Yale, she focused academically on international security and development in the Middle East as well as critical refugee studies. While at Yale, Carman worked for the Yale College Dean’s office, the Yale Office of the General Council, and volunteered with the Yale Refugee Project. After college, Carman moved to Denver, Colorado, where she has spent the last 7 years working for the Boston Consulting Group in their Travel, Cities and Infrastructure practice. While Denver has been her home base, Carman spent time living in London, Sydney, and the Middle East, working with international clients. Outside of travel, Carman loves spending time in the Colorado outdoors in all seasons, be it skiing, flyfishing or hiking.
2013 Anjali Squires (Prahash)
Anjali graduated from the University of Virginia in 2017 with a BA in Foreign Affairs. During her time in college, Anjali discovered her passion for theological education and the need for more counselors able to integrate faith within their clinical work while serving with an on-campus college ministry.
Anjali received an MA in counseling from Dallas Theological Seminary in 2021, and currently lives in Boise, Idaho with her husband, Mitch, where she practices as a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor within a private practice.
Anjali specializes in providing EMDR to clients with trauma backgrounds, and also works alongside couples to strengthen relationships. She is grateful for the privilege of getting to walk alongside clients in their journey of healing and restoration.
Outside of her practice, she and her husband enjoy learning together, skiing, backpacking, hiking, and finding every opportunity to make and enjoy good food. Together, they are passionate about the local church, and believe that being a part of the family of God is a life-changing experience.
2012 Jessie Press-Williams
Jessie graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2016 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a concentration in Economics. While at MIT, she worked on environmental initiatives in Indonesia, conducted research on local innovation and entrepreneurship in Ghana and Tanzania, and gained experience working on community development projects in Zambia. She was also involved with Sigma Kappa, freshman advising, and MIT’s Formula SAE electric competition racecar team. After graduation, Jessie moved to Lusaka, Zambia, as an Associate with IDinsight, an NGO which helps social sector practitioners generate and use evidence to improve decision-making. During her time at IDinsight, she has worked in the public health sector, water and sanitation infrastructure improvement in Zambia, and smallholder agriculture in Uganda.
2011 Logan Coleman
Logan received her master’s degree in public affairs in June 2019 from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Having graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in politics and a certificate in Latin American studies, she was accepted to the prestigious Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative (SINSI) Fellowship. As a SINSI fellow, Logan received full tuition for her master’s degree and served for two years in the U.S. Department of State. She served in the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York, the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, the U.S. Embassy in Skopje, North Macedonia, and the Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Across her fellowship rotations, Logan played a crucial role in developing the U.S. strategy for Venezuela, with a particular emphasis on humanitarian assistance for Venezuelan migrants and refugees. Since finalizing her master’s in 2019, Logan has worked on Latin American migration issues at the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF), an international non-governmental organization headquartered in Washington, DC. She currently serves as Deputy Director for the Migration portfolio, overseeing over $25 million in grant programming that seek to foster the protection and integration of displaced persons in the Americas.
2010 Sarah Chacko
Sarah graduated from Norwich Medical School in England in 2015 and was involved in AIDS/HIV research at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS in Vancouver, Canada during medical school. After finishing two years of internship in the UK, she moved back to Virginia and completed her family medicine residency at VCU-Riverside, serving as chief resident in her final year. After residency, Sarah worked as a primary care physician for 3 years in underserved communities and graduated from George Washington University with a Healthcare MBA in 2024. Sarah is currently pursuing a fellowship in sleep medicine at NYU Langone and will be living in Virginia Beach with her husband, practicing sleep and obesity medicine after fellowship.
2009 Emma Yackso
Emma graduated with her master’s degree in social work and is pursuing a career in LGBTQ+ and juvenile justice. She spent several years working with trans youth, advocating against the School-to-Prison Pipeline in Richmond, VA, and providing wilderness therapy for at-risk youth in the Richmond area. She graduated magna cum laude from George Washington University in 2012 with a degree in political science. After graduation, Emma moved to New Orleans to work in food access and juvenile justice, before returning to Virginia for graduate school.
2008 Kayla Hansen
Kayla graduated from Yale in 2012 with a degree in political science with a focus on international studies. Currently, she resides in Seattle, WA, and is a community engagement specialist for Amazon.com where she partners with non-profits and local community members to provide grants to support science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education across the United States. Previously, she worked on public health and social justice campaigns in California. On most days, you can find her either hiking, reading a good book or in the kitchen whipping up a new recipe.
2007 Lucie Rhoads
Lucie graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2011, where she received the university’s award for one of the top ten outstanding seniors, led a service organization focusing on development work and alternative spring break in Latin America, and served as Teach for America’s campus recruiter for Vanderbilt for three years. After completing her degree, Lucie joined the Teach for America Corps and moved to Memphis, TN, for two years, teaching in high-poverty public schools there. Lucie found her passion for the operational side of school startup, and was a member of the founding team at KIPP Infinity Elementary School in Harlem, as well as Grizzlies Preparatory Charter School in Memphis. After completing her commitment with Teach for America, Lucie moved back to Nashville and started Nashville Classical Charter School as the Founding Director of Operations. After three years there, she transitioned to a Director of Development & Strategic Initiatives role at a charter school network in Nashville called Valor Collegiate Academies, a network of schools who are paving the way for top-tier academic performance and comprehensive human development. When not working, she loves cooking, enjoying the outdoors, SEC football, and hanging out with her lab, Sawyer!
2006 Alia Stewart-Silver
Alia is a licensed psychotherapist, permaculturalist, community facilitator, and rites-of-passage guide. She is the founder of Soul Rooted Healing Arts PLLC, a counseling practice committed to holistic and integrative approaches to human development, and is the co-founder of The Seeds, whose guiding mission is to sow seeds of a life-affirming world at the intersection of the individual, communal, and ecological worlds. Alia graduated with a Masters of Social Work from UC Berkeley in 2014 and a BA from Pomona College in 2011. She believes in our shared capacity to regenerate the world, creating pathways that better serve the needs of people and planet today while nurturing possibilities for generations to come.
2005 Carla Pratico (Rood)
Carla Pratico (née Rood) graduated magna cum laude from Virginia Tech with a degree in political science and minors in classical studies and leadership studies. In 2009, she was named the Virginia Tech Undergraduate Woman of the Year. After graduation, she moved to New York City to apprentice with Judith Glaser, a leadership consultant for top Fortune 500 companies. Carla then founded Polus Digital, Inc., a branding, design, and marketing company, in 2011, which has since served over 70 clients from around the world. In 2017, she began a second company, She Roars, which provides coaching, training, and conferences for over 300 Christian entrepreneurs. In addition to her work, Carla serves her community as a licensed New York City Chaplain and travels internationally speaking to encourage and empower women to become contagiously fearless. She lives in Manhattan with her husband Kalel and their two French Bulldogs, Ella and Charlotte.
2004 Anna Dorn-Gulotta
Anna graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin and then taught science for two years in Charlotte, North Carolina, with Teach for America. In 2015, she graduated from the Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. She now lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and works for Community Legal Services, the local legal aid organization. She and her husband Zac enjoy spending their free time hiking with their dog, Leah.
2003 Katie Reid
Katie Shevlin (née Reid) graduated from Wesleyan University with an interdisciplinary degree in economics, government, and history. During breaks from school, Katie served as an intern during the formation and launch of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence. After college, Katie attended law school at UVa and taught special needs preschool in Albemarle County before returning full-time to the nonprofit sector in Charlottesville. She spent a decade at the University of Virginia as the Executive Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations and is now the Chief Development Officer at the Southern Environmental Law Center. She serves on the board of the Emily Couric Leadership Forum and the Montessori Education Trust. Katie and her husband Ken like to cook, travel, and spend time with their young son and daughter.
2002 Elizabeth Ochs
Elizabeth Ochs graduated from Brown University with a concentration in Urban Studies and received a Master of Education from Antioch University New England. After college, Elizabeth worked as a community organizer at the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless and edited a newspaper about homelessness, called Street Sights. She then worked at Central Falls High School, a public high school in Rhode Island, as the Expanded Learning Opportunities coordinator. Next Elizabeth served as an education and nonprofit consultant working with organizations such as the The Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty, and the Brown Alpert Medical School. In 2022, Elizabeth founded the Creative Reuse Center of RI that turns extra materials and supplies from manufacturers and businesses into treasures for educators, artists, kids, and other community members. She now directs that non-profit in addition to serving as a Program Manager at the Bronfman Fellowship, overseeing leadership development and mentoring. Elizabeth lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with her husband and son.
2001 Heidi Swan
Heidi Kelly (née Swan) graduated from University of Virginia in 2005 with a double major in History and Spanish. After graduation, she worked with the migrant and immigrant communities in the Charlottesville area as an AmeriCorps member. She then moved to Philadelphia where she spent a year as a counselor in a charter school for former drop-outs, while taking classes at night towards a degree in public health (MPH). As part of her studies, she worked with refugees and immigrants to address their specific health needs and health disparities in Philadelphia. This work led to an opportunity to work on cancer screening and prevention research projects in the Philadelphia area. Longing to move from research to the ‘front lines’ of health care, Heidi returned to nursing school. She earned her BSN and MSN from Columbia University in New York City. Today, Heidi is a Family Nurse Practitioner working in Chattanooga, TN, where she lives with her husband, daughter, and son.