EDS Undergraduate Awards

Congratulations, Class of 2025!

EDS is excited to announce a set of awards to recognize outstanding graduating undergraduate EDS students! Read more about our recipients for the Class of 2025.

Annette Lopez

Award: Education Studies Excellence in Elementary Education Award

Major/Minor: Education Sciences and Human Developmental Sciences Double Major

Career Goals: Elementary school educator, researcher, and author

Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." – Arthur Ashe
Jasmin Amezcua

Award: Education Studies Excellence in Secondary Education Award

Major/Minor: General Biology Major and Science Education Minor

Career Goals: My goal is to become a High School Biology Teacher who creates a welcoming environment for all of her students and inspires them to stay curious.

Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Always find the light in things, even in the darkness."
Noah Meni

Award: Education Studies Excellence in Programs, Policy & Research Award

Major/Minor: Education Studies Major

Career Goals: Working in outdoor education and recreation for a university

Favorite Inspirational Quote: "The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.” – John Muir
Kaitlyn Rim

Award: Education Studies Outstanding Student Award

Major/Minor: Education Sciences and Psychology Double Major and Linguistics Minor

Career Goals: Elementary school teacher and university lecturer

Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Keep watering yourself. You're growing.” – E. Russell
Dan Han

Award: Partners at Learning Outstanding Service Learning Award

Major/Minor: Human Biology Major and Education Studies Minor

Career Goals: Medicine

Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. – Martin Luther King Jr.

Congratulations, Class of 2024!

Read more about our recipients for the Class of 2024.

Paige Nguyen

Award: Education Studies Outstanding Student Award

Major/Minor: Education Sciences Major and Human Developmental Sciences Minor

Career Goals: Elementary school teacher and administrative leader

Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Nothing is impossible, the word itself says "I'm possible!" – Audrey Hepburn
Venus Spann

Award: Education Studies Excellence in Secondary Education Award

Major/Minor: Linguistics, Cognition & Language Major and Single Subject Minor

Career Goals: Secondary school teacher and pursue a PhD

Favorite Inspirational Quote: "To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour." – Walden, Henry David Thoreau
Esther Bueno

Award: Education Studies Excellence in Elementary Education Award

Major/Minor: Education Studies Major and Psychology Minor

Career Goals: Elementary school teacher

Favorite Inspirational Quote: "I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
Kole Kistler

Award: Education Studies Excellence in Education Award

Major/Minor: Education Sciences Major and Critical Gender Studies Minor with Honors Research

Career Goals: University professor and teach about queer theory, intersectional feminism, educational policy, and disability justice

Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who you are– so you can more wisely build the future.” – Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968)
Geovanni Aceves

Award: Education Studies Excellence in Service-Learning/PAL Award

Major/Minor: Mathematics & Education Sciences Double Major and Public Service Minor

Career Goals: Secondary mathematics teacher

Favorite Inspirational Quote: "You can often view glimpses of ingeniousness not as inexplicable miracles, but as the residue of experience; and when you do, the idea of genius goes from being mesmerizing to instead being actively inspirational." – Grant Sanderson

Congratulations, Class of 2023!

Read more about our recipients for the Class of 2023.

Alexandra Pina

Award: Education Studies Outstanding Student Award

Major/Minor: Double major in Education Sciences and Linguistics: Language Studies (Spanish)

Career Goals: Middle school spanish and dual language teacher

Favorite Inspirational Quote: “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” -Marcus Aurelius
Angelie Hoang

Award: Education Studies Excellence in Secondary Education Award

Major/Minor: Major in Mathematics and minor in Mathematics Education

Career Goals: Secondary mathematics teacher

Favorite Inspirational Quote: "To love through and because of mathematics is to build hopefulness, to cultivate creativity, to promote reflection, and to foster a thirst for deep knowledge and deep investigation.” -Francis Su
Chenelle McClain

Award: Education Studies Excellence in Education Award

Major/Minor: Linguistics and Education Studies

Career Goals:To advocate for equity and equality in education.

Favorite inspirational quote: "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." -Nelson Mandela
Johanna Kye

Award: Education Studies Excellence in Elementary Education Award

Major/Minor: Education Studies Major and Psychology Minor & Transnational Korean Studies Minor

Career Goals: Elementary school teacher

Favorite inspirational quote: "Hope is the thing with feathers. That perches in the soul. And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all." -Emily Dickinson
Tori McMillan

Award: Education Studies Excellence in Service-Learning/PAL Award

Major/Minor: Double major in Psychology with a Specialization in Cognitive Psychology & Black Diaspora and African American Studies with a Minor in Education Studies

Career goals: Elementary school teacher

Favorite Inspirational Quote: “I am still learning – how to take joy in all the people I am, how to use all my selves in the service of what I believe, how to accept when I fail and rejoice when I succeed.” -Audre Lorde