Meet Navisite’s Next Steminist Scholarship Winners Who Are Ready to Change the World

Although women make up more than half of the college-educated workforce in the U.S., only 27% of them are represented in STEM.

Today, it’s more important than ever that these numbers improve—and that progress is made in diversifying our workplaces. That’s because diverse companies are proven to perform better: They’re 1.7x more innovative and 120% more likely to hit financial goals. Those numbers only begin to paint a much larger picture—and ultimately, greater opportunities for innovation, fresh perspectives and new ideas are all available when we give women a seat at the table.

That’s why, in early 2021, Navisite launched its Next Steminist Scholarship with one major goal in mind: to help close the gender gap in STEM. We were thrilled to award $10,000 to each of the three 2021 winners. Now in our second year, we’re excited to officially announce the winners of the 2022 program: Marissa Capelli, Madison Nguyen and Tatiana Vassiliev.

“It is a privilege to name Navisite’s ‘Next Steminists’ winners,” said Gina Murphy, president and chief transformation officer of Navisite. “Now in our second year, we continue to be impressed by the level of commitment, intelligence and maturity of the candidates. This year’s winners are exceptional young women who are looking to make a real impact in the world with their STEM educations. We are pleased to support them as they pursue their goals.”

We’re shining a spotlight on each of the winners—and how they plan to use their scholarship to pursue careers in STEM fields and work to better society and human health.  

Marissa Capelli

I will use my position as a female engineer to encourage more females and minorities to consider engineering by mentoring aspiring engineers in organizations such as the Society of Women Engineers and FIRST Robotics.”

From: Onalaska, Wisconsin

Education: Purdue University

Mission: Marissa will pursue her dream of developing intelligent robots designed to assist with hazardous tasks like nuclear leaks, underwater welding and emergency search scenarios. She also wants to elevate future STEM professionals.

Madison Nguyen

In the future, I want to lobby and create solutions to increase the political presence and socioeconomic status of not just my own Vietnamese community, but all minority groups affected by disinformation.”

From: McKinney, Texas

Education: Duke University

Mission: Madison plans to earn a degree in computer science and become a researcher finding solutions to solve issues with misinformation and disinformation on digital media platforms. She was inspired to combat this issue head-on when she noticed members of her Vietnamese community being misled online.

Tatiana Vassiliev

 I hope to empower future generations by sharing STEM knowledge and establishing research opportunities—areas that help me pursue my dream.”

From: Houston, Texas

Education: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Mission: Tatiana plans to study electrical engineering so she can tackle future design challenges and pursue a career to facilitate space exploration and enhance the global quality of life. Her dream career is to develop a global research organization that focuses on developing medical robotics solutions to allow deep space travel.

About Navisite’s Next Steminist Program

The Navisite Next Steminist program is administered by Navisite customer Scholarship America®, the nation’s largest designer and manager of scholarship, tuition assistance, and other education support programs for corporations, foundations, associations, and individuals.

To learn more about the Steminists whoa are making a difference at Navisite, please check out our Steminist Spotlight blog series.