It’s never easy to ask for help, especially when its financial help. When two-time FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science alumna Nechama Deana Karp, ’15, ’17, committed to completing both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, she knew the financial burden would be challenging to manage on her own.
During her time at Florida Atlantic, Deana was the recipient of the Tyco International Innovation Leadership Endowed Scholarship, two AT&T scholarships, an FAU alumni scholarship, as well as multiple educational grants awarded through FAU. Additionally, she was awarded the Executive Women of the Palm Beaches Scholarship.
Upon graduation in 2017, Deana was hired by Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) and now works at the company’s distribution control center as a control center lead.
Filled with gratitude for all the financial help she received, Deana created a non-profit called See The Endless Possibilities (STEP) in 2018. The mission of her organization is to support women by providing scholarships, as well as mindfulness tools, as they pursue degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM).
“I want to help women step into the lives they were meant to live by supporting their STEM education goals, and providing them with resources to improve their lives and make a difference in their communities,” said Deana.
In just three years, Deana created a positive ripple effect, raising the necessary $25,000 to endow a College of Engineering and Computer Science scholarship. The scholarship will be awarded during the spring 2023 semester for the first time.
Not only does Deana want to support the next generation of engineers, but her current employer wants to do so as well. In February, Florida Atlantic University and FPL, through its charitable arm the NextEra Energy Foundation, agreed to a four-year collaboration to establish the FPL Center for Intelligent Energy Technologies (InETech), which will be housed in FAU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science. This exciting partnership provides scholarship support to attract highly qualified students to the College of Engineering and Computer Science, and enables students to participate in innovative energy industry projects.
To learn more about how Florida Atlantic is supporting bright scholars like Deana and others, as well as how Transcend Tomorrow: The Campaign for Florida Atlantic University is working to address the growing need for scholarships that propel access to higher education, create a healthier environment, and train more health care workers, visit transcendtomorrow.fau.edu.
