Scholarship Recipient Highlight: Ifemayowa Aworanti, 2013 Emerging Scholar Award

Our congratulations go out to Ifemayowa Aworanti, a rising junior and the Chapter President at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, on being named the recipient of the 2013 Emerging Scholar Award! Golden Key’s Emerging Scholar Award recognizes a sophomore who has made a significant difference in their chapter.
Originally from Nigeria, Ifemayowa’s family moved to the U.S. for better educational opportunities. He is majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology at UMBC. He is currently performing summer research at Yale University as part of the Sackler/NSF REU, which enables undergraduate students interested in pursuing a career in the sciences to conduct interdisciplinary research that focuses on the intersection of biology, physics, and engineering.
Upon receiving the award, Ifemayowa said, “I am deeply grateful of, humbled, and encouraged, by this opportunity that Golden Key has allotted me, through the Emerging Scholar Award, to fund my education. It means everything to me. It will help me to more fully focus on my academic and research work towards achieving my life’s goal of becoming a physician researcher. I am encouraged by Golden Key’s confidence in me that I maybe can achieve my goal. This makes me even more resolute in my aim to keep working hard towards achieving it.”
Ifemayowa’s goal is to become a physician researcher who leads and conducts research against diseases such as AIDS, sickle-cell disease and cancer. He hopes to achieve this by entering into a dual MD/PhD program with a research focus in bioengineering after college. He is an extremely hard worker, studying every single day, including holidays.
Ifemayowa is involved in a multitude of activities outside of his academic work.  In order to financially support his education, he works as both as a writer for the UMBC newspaper and as an office assistant in the UMBC Office of Student Life. One of his proudest accomplishments on the newspaper staff was the creation of a “Researcher of the Week” column where they promote and encourage undergraduate research across campus. He is also member of the Health and Wellness sector of UMBC’s Student Government Association, where he works with other students to create ways to improve student health on campus.
When asked about being the president of the UMBC chapter of Golden Key, he said, “As a Golden Key member and officer I work hard, and I have the opportunity to work with an amazing group of hard working, motivated, and dedicated individuals: like our great members, our amazing executive board, our amazing chapter advisor, and our wonderful regional director.  Being around them has been a great motivation for me. And with their help, I have led our chapter in hosting the 2013 Baltimore Regional Summit. As part of the Summit, we made cards for the inhabitants of the Samaritan Women Center- a recuperation home for victims of abuse and human trafficking. Furthermore, during the spring 2013 semester, our chapter worked with two other student organizations to bring over 200 disadvantaged youths from a local middle school to our campus as a way of inspiring them to strive to achieve at least a collegiate education.”
Please join us in congratulating this outstanding student and Golden Key member!