Sue & James Wong Memorial Scholarship

My name is Soumya, and my story begins with loss, but it continues with purpose. When I was three years old, my mother passed away from stage IV stomach cancer. My father never remarried, and from that point on, our home was defined by grief, silence, and emotional instability. He carried his pain inward, and I grew up trying to make sense of it while navigating my own. Love existed, but it was often overshadowed by volatility and tension. Living in a single-parent household came with more than financial strain; it came with emotional weight. I learned to read the room before I spoke, to take responsibility for peace in a home that often felt fragile. I became independent early, managing my emotions and ambitions without guidance. That independence would later become both my survival mechanism and my strength. As I grew older, I began to experience intense mood swings, periods of confidence and creativity followed by exhaustion and despair. I didn’t understand what was happening. By the time I reached my teens, my mental health had started to affect my academics and self-worth. I failed a year of high school, dropped out of college during my first attempt, and eventually experienced homelessness while trying to rebuild my education. At my lowest point, I was living in a shelter, studying at night on borrowed Wi-Fi. I often thought about my mother during those moments, how she faced her illness with grace, and how her love still shaped me even in absence. I imagined her reminding me that pain could be a teacher and that hardship didn’t define me, it refined me. That belief became my turning point. I sought help, received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and began treatment. For the first time, I understood that what I was facing wasn’t failure; it was a condition that required compassion, consistency, and care. Through therapy, medication, and structured routines, I rebuilt my life one step at a time. I returned to college with a renewed sense of purpose, determined to transform my experiences into something meaningful. I maintained a 4.0 GPA, earned a Business Development Internship with Siemens Energy, and most importantly, founded Melo, an AI-powered mental health and productivity app designed to help others like me. Melo adapts to users’ emotional and cognitive states in real time, helping them balance structure and well-being without judgment. What began as a personal coping tool has grown into a mission-driven platform with over 700 users on its waitlist, recognized by LvlUpVentures, the F(Lux) Fellowship, and the Telora Fellowship for its innovation and social impact. Through these experiences, I’ve come to realize that my life’s purpose lies at the intersection of empathy and innovation. I’m pursuing a degree in Finance and Data Analytics to build scalable, data-driven mental health systems that improve accessibility and support for underserved communities. My goal is to merge business and compassion; to use technology not just to solve problems, but to humanize them. Losing my mother and growing up with one parent taught me that strength isn’t about perfection; it’s about persistence. My challenges have shaped me into someone who believes deeply in the power of second chances. Through my education, I plan to create systems that help others find hope, structure, and belonging, especially those who feel unseen by traditional paths. In many ways, my mother’s absence became my greatest teacher. Her love, and the lessons born from loss, continue to guide me. I plan to honor her not just by succeeding, but by using my success to help others rise, too.

I grew up in Las Vegas with my mom, who immigrated from El Salvador, and my dad, who was born in the United States. When my father passed away in 2021 due to medical malpractice, it completely reshaped my life and my family. Overnight, my mom became a single parent, forced to manage overwhelming medical debt and the responsibility of raising me alone. Watching her balance grief, bills, and work at the same time showed me what strength actually looks like. Living with a single parent after losing my father changed how I saw responsibility and shaped the way I approach my education and future. Before that, I did not think much about how fragile life could be. Losing my dad made me grow up fast, and it made me realize that nothing is guaranteed, not time, not comfort, and not even stability. I had to learn to be independent, to manage my own responsibilities, and to take school seriously while everything around me was uncertain. My mom always reminded me that education was something no one could take away from me. That advice stayed with me. In high school, I started to see how my interests in science and the environment could connect to something bigger. I helped start a meteorology and environmental club with two friends from my engineering class. What started as a small idea turned into something meaningful. We raised three thousand dollars and used it to build a garden at our school to promote sustainability and awareness about environmental issues. That project showed me that even small efforts can create change when people care enough to act. Now, as a Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Nevada Reno, I am trying to apply that same mindset to my studies. I am interested in sustainable energy and environmental technology, especially solutions that combine engineering and policy, like nuclear energy or advanced water systems for drought prone areas. Growing up in the Las Vegas desert made me realize how essential those innovations are. Water scarcity, rising temperatures, and energy demand are not distant problems, they are realities where I live. My long term goal is to work on engineering solutions that make clean energy and resource conservation more practical and accessible. I want to focus on technology that directly helps communities, especially those like my own that often have to deal with the consequences of inequality, poor planning, and limited resources. I believe mechanical engineering gives me the technical foundation to make a difference, and my background gives me the drive to do it for the right reasons. Losing my father taught me more about resilience than any class ever could. My mom’s determination to rebuild our lives, despite all the setbacks, is what continues to motivate me. I am grateful for what she has done and for the perspective I have gained through it. Being raised by a single parent was not easy, but it taught me responsibility, empathy, and how to keep moving forward even when things get difficult. The Sue Wong Scholarship means a lot to me because it represents more than financial help. It represents recognition of what families like mine go through. It honors the strength of single parents and their children who grow from that struggle, not in spite of it, but because of it. I want to use my education to carry that same strength forward, building something lasting from the challenges I have faced, and helping others do the same.