The first time I understood what it meant to operate at the intersection of technical precision and real consequence, I was staring at a Python model I had built to measure portfolio risk and watching it fail under stress conditions I hadn’t anticipated. I was supporting risk analytics development at an investment firm. The Monte Carlo simulation I had written was technically correct on paper. But when I stress-tested it against historical drawdown scenarios, the outputs were misleading in ways invisible to someone without the statistical intuition to catch them. I caught it. I rebuilt it. That moment answered something I had been curious about since I first picked up Python: in quantitative finance, the gap between “technically correct” and “actually right” can cost millions, and the people who close that gap are exactly the ones this industry is still missing. I am one of six women in VCU’s Student Managed Investment Portfolio out of 40 analysts and the only woman from Computer Science. I did not fully appreciate what that meant until I walked into my first team meeting and looked around the room. I was not surprised. I had been in rooms like that before. But I made a quiet decision to be someone who stays, who builds, and who makes it easier for the next woman to walk in. I grew up in a multigenerational household, three quarters women, low income, the kind of home where you figure things out yourself or they don’t get figured out. I am the first in my family on this path. Every dollar that doesn’t go toward tuition is time and headspace I get back to do the work that will determine where I go from here. That work extends beyond my own advancement. I have spent years teaching math and computer science through CodeVA and now as a mathematics and statistics tutor. I volunteered with NSBE at VCU to bring hands-on STEM programming to middle schoolers at STEM Fest. I served as an undergraduate research assistant in VCU’s Data Science Lab supporting work that benefited underrepresented communities, including the Virginia Twin Registry. I mentor CS students earlier in their programs the way I wish someone had mentored me. This scholarship would let me step further into technical leadership and build the presence that changes what a young woman thinks is possible. I also hold a prior B.F.A. in Interior Design. I use it as an asset. Design thinking taught me to ask what a model is actually communicating before accepting what it outputs. Choosing to start over, financially and academically, was not a small decision. It was the right one. I chose this field because the models built here shape capital allocation, risk exposure, and economic outcomes at scale. I want to build them well. I want to be visible doing it. And I want the girl sitting in a classroom in Richmond right now, the one who is good at math and doesn’t see anyone who looks like her in the rooms where that math gets used, to know that those rooms are hers too.

The moment I decided to study computer science, I was staring at a budget spreadsheet, not a line of code. I was finishing my degree in Interior Design and serving as treasurer of our ASID chapter, where I managed about $5,000 a year and helped grow revenue by roughly 20 percent. Later I was student lead for VCU's first team in the Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. Every big decision came down to data: what it costs, what can go wrong, how likely it is. I realized I did not want to only work inside other people's models. I wanted to build them. So I went back for a second bachelor's degree, this time in Computer Science with a Data Science concentration at Virginia Commonwealth University. My dream job is quantitative risk at a buy side investment firm in New York. I want to build the systems that tell a portfolio manager what could go wrong before it does. I have already started. I built a Capital Allocation Risk Engine in Python that uses bootstrapped Monte Carlo simulation to compute Value at Risk, Conditional Value at Risk, and drawdown, and I analyze client portfolios as a Portfolio Risk Analytics Intern at Main Street Private Advisors. I also sit on VCU's Student Managed Investment Portfolio covering banks and insurers. Why me? Because, like Chris, I know what it costs to earn this degree. I am a first generation student from an immigrant household that runs on my mother's nursing salary. I work while studying and help care for my grandmother, who has dementia. This past spring I failed two math courses in a single semester. I did not hide from it. I retook Calculus II and Linear Algebra at community college over the summer, added Data Structures and Discrete Structures, and earned an A in all four. I also try to live the part of Chris's story his family wrote about first: being fully present for people. As an Afterschool Program Coordinator with Richmond Parks and Recreation, my job is to give kids my full attention. At VCU, I am relaunching the Financial Management Association so students who work through school like me have someone asking how they can help. This scholarship would buy back time I currently spend working by the hour, and I would spend it the way Chris did: building something real and pulling others up with me.

Even The table rocked the moment Dara set her coffee down a small click against the tile that, as far as she could tell, only she could hear. Everyone else in the café had made peace with it. The man across the aisle balanced his laptop, his lunch, and apparently his whole nervous system on three legs and a prayer. Dara could not. She folded a napkin into eighths and slid it under the short leg. The table tipped the other way. Now a different leg was short. This is the thing nobody tells you about wobbly tables: there is no short leg. There is only a floor that has quietly stopped being flat, and four legs negotiating badly with it. She got down on the tile actually down, cheek near the grout, while the barista pretended not to watch and sighted along the base until she found it. Not a short leg at all. A high one, an eighth of an inch too proud, lifting its diagonal partner off the ground every time someone breathed near it. The napkin was wrong. The napkin was always wrong; paper compresses, then you're back where you started, just with worse posture. She needed something that wouldn't give. The sugar packet flattened to nothing. The coffee stirrer snapped. A folded receipt held for exactly as long as it took her to feel proud, then surrendered. Around her, people came and went, untroubled, ordering oat lattes on top of a structural failure. Dara understood how she looked. A grown woman conducting a forensic investigation into a café table while her coffee went cold. Trivial. She'd have said so too, about anyone else. But there's a specific, private itch in being the only person who notices a thing is wrong and could be right. It's not about the table. It's about the eighth of an inch the knowledge that the gap is measurable, which means it's closeable, which means walking away is a choice and not an accident. The fix, when it came, was a wine cork someone had left on the windowsill, trimmed with her keys into a wedge so thin it was almost an idea. She seated it under the proud leg and pressed. Set her elbows on the surface. Leaned her full weight in. Nothing. No click. The table met the floor on all four points at once, like it had been waiting years for someone to bother. She sat back down and drank her coffee, which was terrible now, cold and over-sweet from the sacrificed packet. Worth it. She stayed another twenty minutes, then packed up and left the fixed table for whoever came next. A teenager took it without looking. Set down a milkshake, opened a textbook, never felt the ground shift, because it didn't. He would never know it had ever been otherwise — which was, Dara thought on her way out, the entire point of doing it. The best repairs are the ones nobody feels. You just get to sit at a table that holds.

Building Tomorrow’s World with Data and Purpose When I first started learning how to code, I didn’t see it as a path to a career, I saw it as a way to create change. I was fascinated by how technology connects people, how something written in a few lines of code could make life easier or solve a problem that once felt impossible. As a Black woman in computer science, I’ve learned that STEM is more than algorithms and machines, it’s about the impact those tools can make on people’s lives. My journey has been about learning to use data not just to predict outcomes, but to make a difference for overlooked communities. I’m pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a concentration in Data Science and minors in Statistics and Finance at Virginia Commonwealth University. Every class reminds me that the future belongs to those who understand both numbers and people. For me, STEM isn’t about prestige, it’s about purpose. I want to use data to make the world fairer, giving communities like mine a voice in decisions that shape our environment and economy. I believe data can be a form of advocacy and a bridge toward more inclusive decision making. One of the most meaningful experiences of my college journey was serving as Student Lead for the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. Our challenge was to design a net-zero, affordable housing project for low-income families in Richmond, Virginia. I was one of the youngest on the team and one of the only Black women, but I quickly learned that leadership isn’t about being the loudest voice in the room, it’s about listening, learning, and helping others see how their work connects to something bigger. Late nights of collaboration taught me that technology and empathy must work together. When we presented our design, I felt pride not just in what we built, but in why we built it, to create sustainable housing rooted in compassion and equity. As a Data Science and Machine Learning Undergraduate Assistant, I’ve analyzed climate and social data to identify communities most vulnerable to environmental risks. I’ve seen how data can tell stories that inspire change, from modeling natural disasters to mapping underserved regions. My technical work in Python, R, and statistical modeling gives me the tools to solve problems, but my heart for service gives me the reason to solve them. Outside the lab, I mentor women and students of color through VCU’s STEM mentorship program. I know what it feels like to question whether you belong in a space not built for you. Helping a student understand a concept or finish her first project reminds me why representation matters, it changes what people believe is possible. Each time I see someone’s confidence grow, I’m reminded that progress begins when we lift each other up. Looking ahead, I hope to merge my love for data and finance to design solutions for sustainable investing and community resilience. I want to help organizations make responsible financial decisions that benefit both people and the planet. My dream is to become a quantitative analyst and technology leader who measures progress not just in profit, but in purpose. The Women in STEM Scholarship would mean more than financial support, it would affirm the values guiding my journey: resilience, empathy, and innovation. I believe the future of STEM belongs to women who build with both intelligence and heart. I hope to keep paving that path so one day another young girl can look at me and think, “If she can do it, maybe I can too."