LPS Student Awards for 2012

Congratulations to our Student Award Winners for 2012.

• Michael King - Dean’s Scholar
• Elizabeth Sorel - Ronald J. Caridi Award
• Thayne Dibble - Linda Bowen Santoro Award
• Maura Collinsgru - Association of Alumnae Continuing Education Award
• Kylie Mitchell - LPS Award for Academic Achievement in the Natural Sciences
• Caroline D’Angelo - Dean’s Scholar, Master of Environmental Studies
• Allison Tether - Institute for Environmental Studies Award for Outstanding MSAG Student
• Dakota Dobyns - Institute for Environmental Studies Award for Outstanding MES Student

Dean’s Scholar

Michael King

Bachelor of Arts

Michael King is an English major who attended Montgomery College (Maryland) and Northern Virginia Community College prior to coming to Penn. In 2009, at the urging of Karen Rile, he had a short story published in Peregrine, Penn’s creative writing journal. The accomplishment of which he is most proud is his recognition as a Mellon-Mays Fellow in 2010. With the help and encouragement of Mellon mentors and administrators like Herman Beavers, Tanji Gilliam, Julius Fleming, Valarie Swain-Cade McCoullum, and Patricia Ravenell, he has decided to pursue a doctorate in English.

In 2011 Michael joined the English Department’s Undergraduate Advisory Board and helped organize this year’s Winter Reading Project. Through Penn, he writes that he “has had the privilege to take a class with the director of The Slought Foundation, Aaron Levy, and over the course of the semester helped edit a draft of the Foundation’s most recent book, Evasions of Power. He received Dean's List recognition in 2007-8 and 2010-11.

Michael is very humble about his accomplishments at Penn and suggests that they “are a testament to the various communities I have found while at Penn. Community is at heart of what an LPS education offers, and these communities, both varied and abundant, provide so much more than accolades. They have encouraged my academic pursuits, introduced me to peers who share my passion for learning and provided me with faith at a time when I was unsure as to whether I would succeed. In short, my experience at LPS was one in which I learned about both my passion for learning and that scholarship is a process and never an end-point."

back to top

Ronald J. Caridi Award

Elizabeth Sorel

Bachelor of Arts

Awarded annually to the College of Liberal and Professional Studies graduate who best exemplifies the uncompromising commitment to scholarship, hard work, and the life of the mind which the late Ronald J. Caridi embodied and shared with so many.

Elizabeth “Betty” Sorel will graduate with a major in Anthropology and a concentration in Human Biology. A full-time Humane Law Enforcement Officer, she started her career as a Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals PSCPA volunteer and has worked in the kennel and as a driver. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina she helped rescue animals in New Orleans, and has been featured on Animal Planet’s “Animal Cops.”

Betty loves Anthropology and feels she has been transformed by her exposure to Dr. Janet Monge and that she has found a spiritual home in this particular discipline. She describes her circuitous route to higher education—spending her late teens and early twenties traveling, working, pursuing hobbies, and giving back to the community. When she began attending college at Penn, she knew she had found the right place. She explains "Walking around campus on my way to class I experience a feeling of belonging. I love to learn and my time at Penn has convinced me that academia is the place for me."

Betty plans to continue her education and looks forward to returning to school to complete a Ph.D. She wants to become involved in research and field work in physical anthropology and perhaps one day become a professor.

back to top

Linda Bowen Santoro Award

Thayne Dibble

Bachelor of Arts

Awarded annually by the College of Liberal and Professional Studies to a graduating LPS student with unusual motivation and dedication in the pursuit of an undergraduate degree.

Thayne originally entered Penn as a College of Arts and Sciences freshman. Then 19, she was a professional dancer and was trying to balance a career with the demands of being a full-time college freshman at an Ivy League institution. She did very well in her first semester, but needed a school schedule that would continue to allow her career to flourish. Taking the advice of her CAS advisor, Thayne applied and was accepted into LPS, where she took classes part time and danced professionally full time.

She will graduate with a major in Classical Studies and a concentration in Classical Civilization. Her academic accomplishments include making the Dean's List, being inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and serving on the board of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars as the Vice President of the Penn chapter.

Among her favorite highlights of her Penn career are her two trips abroad studying in London and Rome, one in the semester before starting Penn as a freshman, and the other before starting her senior year in LPS. These bookend trips marked exciting and rewarding milestones for Thayne.

Following graduation, Thayne plans to continue teaching dance classes and dancing professionally while she studies for the LSATs.

back to top

Association of Alumnae Continuing Education Award

Maura Collinsgru

Bachelor of Arts

Awarded annually to the student whose scholarship and personal qualities of leadership are regarded as being the most outstanding.

Maura learned of LPS and the Bread Scholarship program through a feature article she read in The Philadelphia Inquirer in the late 1990s. She was engaged in educational advocacy at the time with no formal higher education training, and her friends and family encouraged her to apply for the scholarship. Maura started her college career at Burlington County College in New Jersey and was accepted by Penn in the fall of 2004. She earned Dean’s list recognition for 2010-2011 and will be graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Communication and a concentration in Public Service.

Maura has been married to husband Bob for 31 years and is the mother to three sons, Robert, Frank and Sean. In recent years her family of three boys has grown to include two daughters-in-law and a granddaughter who is the light of her life.

She has enjoyed the enriching culture and curriculum of the LPS and will miss the opportunity to learn from the diverse and talented mix of people she has encountered at Penn. Maura says, “While I am proud of all I have accomplished over these last eight years, the two things I am most proud of bookend my experiences here: my admission to LPS as a Bread Scholar and the completion of my Communications Honors Thesis.  After graduation she hopes to return to advocacy work in the public sector, working for, or with, an organization dedicated to pursuing justice on behalf of individuals.

back to top

LPS Award for Academic Achievement in the Natural Sciences

Kylie Mitchell

Bachelor of Arts

Kylie will graduate from Penn with a B.A. in Chemistry. While pursuing her undergraduate degree, she worked full time at Penn for the past three years in the Business Analytics group in Development and Alumni Relations. Kylie successfully balanced a full-time work schedule and long hours in classes and labs while completing her degree requirements, and she acknowledges that managing her multiple roles has been both challenging and extremely rewarding. 

Kylie conducted undergraduate research projects in both organic and inorganic chemistry labs, which confirmed her desire to further her education. This fall she will attend the University of Florida to pursue a Ph.D. in Chemistry. She believes the skills she acquired in the workplace and in the classroom will benefit her in the future and will most remember the great traditions and wonderful classmates, professors, colleagues, and friends who have inspired her at Penn.

back to top

Dean’s Scholar

Caroline D’Angelo

Master of Environmental Studies

In 2011, Caroline traveled to India and Sri Lanka with Penn students and faculty to learn about opportunities to work on projects related to water, sanitation, and women’s Issues. This trip inspired her to co-found wH2O, Penn’s journal on women, water and sanitation, and to write her capstone on "The Women, Water and Sanitation Crisis and the Role of the Transnational Corporation."

While at Penn, Caroline has served as a Graduate Intern for the Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL) at Wharton, where she led research on eco-labels and certification.  She also directed a student volunteer team for research and blog writing and started a new IGEL Student Research Brief series so that students can highlight their environmental business research in usable forms for businesses.

Caroline became a Reporter in Residence for oikos International Students for Sustainable Economics and Management in September 2011. Through this group she has written and served as editor for a blog that covered environmental conferences like the World Resources Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the UN Programme in Responsible Investing, and oikos Young Scholars Finance Academy, Gais, Switzerland. She also organized a student reporter program for 11 Penn students attending the World Water Forum VI in Marseilles, France in mid March.  She taught the students how to blog and use electronic media and set up interviews for these students with high profile speakers at the event.

back to top

Institute for Environmental Studies Award for Outstanding MSAG Student

Allison Tether

While an MSAG student, Allison enrolled with full-time status concentrating in Environmental Geology. Her academic success secured her a competitive internship with the URS Corporation, Washington Division, where Allison assisted the geotechnical engineering group in the investigation of the surficial and bedrock geology along a 35-mile stretch of transmission lines. Later, she interpreted the geological data and assisted the engineers in the design of new monopole transmission towers. Her work experience led to her thesis, titled “Engineering Geology: A Study of the Varying Geology of Northern New Jersey and How It Affects Foundation Design.” Based on her performance, Allison was offered a full-time position as an engineering geologist with the geotechnical engineering group upon her graduation.

back to top

Institute for Environmental Studies Award for Outstanding MES Student

Dakota Dobyns

After joining the MES program, Dakota obtained the position of Coordinator at the Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership where she has worked full time to organize conferences and meetings between Penn faculty and business leaders to help solve major environmental problems facing top companies. Dakota has participated in major environmental conferences such as the annual World Water Conference in Stockholm and, on a recent trip to India and Sri Lanka with Penn students and faculty, learned about opportunities to work on projects related to water, sanitation, and women’s Issues. This trip inspired her to Co-found wH2O, Penn’s journal on Women, Water and Sanitation and to write her capstone titled "wH2O: The Journal on Gender & Water @ The University of Pennsylvania."

back to top