The prestigious scholarships described here provide monetary awards and other types of assistance intended to support the graduate and undergraduate education of outstanding students. What these scholarships have in common is that they are recognized as among the most prestigious available and as such can have a dramatic, life-changing impact on the lives of the students who receive them.
Scholarships and Fellowships
Here are our descriptions of selected Prestigious Scholarships and Fellowships with links to their websites for more information.
Scholarships for Students with Disabilities
A directory of scholarships with links to their websites that provides financial assistance to students with disabilities.
Student Affairs Scholarships
The prestigious scholarships described here provide monetary awards and other types of assistance intended to support the graduate and undergraduate education of outstanding students.
Undergraduate Research Opportunities
A directory of programs that provides undergraduate students with the opportunity to participate in a mentored research experience in a range of academic disciplines.
Application Deadlines
This section includes a listing of scholarship application deadlines.
CUNY Scholarship Recipients
Come take a look at all the CUNY Students who have won prestigious scholarships, and click on their names to read bios and news articles about them and their accomplishments.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
If you don’t see the answer you’re looking for, please see the College Contacts page.
College Contacts
This is a listing of initial contact persons in the CUNY colleges for those individuals interested in prestigious scholarships.
CUNY Rhodes Scholars
Prestigious Scholarships News
Rebecca Baron
College: Macaulay Honors College | Brooklyn College
Awards: Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship, 2016
Rebecca Baron (Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’18) is a sophomore Psychology major with a minor in Neuroscience. She is one of just 15 New York City students – including 12 from CUNY – to win a 2016 Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship. Baron aspires to be a pediatrician and believe that this award and the experiences that it offers will allow her to become the worldly and innovative doctor she hopes to become.
Alina Shen
Alina ShenCollege: Macaulay Honors College | CUNY Baccalaureate Degree | City College
Awards: Critical Language Scholarship, 2016
Alina Shen (CUNY B.A. and Macaulay Honors College at City College, ’17) will study Mandarin in Taiwan on a State Department Critical Language Scholarship. She has studied abroad before in pursuit of her unique CUNY Baccalaureate major, Critical Social Change: Public Policy and Ethnic Studies. Through Macaulay Honors College, she received a William R. Kenan Fellowship to Cape Town last summer and studied the truth and reconciliation process that has mediated South Africa’s transition out of apartheid.
Antonios (Andoni) Mourdoukoutas
College: City College
Awards: National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship 2016; Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship 2015
Antonios “Andoni” Mourdoukoutas ’16 (City College) has received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship award (NSF). He plans to pursue doctoral research on electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve at UC Berkeley – UC San Francisco. In 2015, Mourdoukoutas won a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship as an undergraduate at City College.
Sebastian Franco
College: Baruch College
Awards: Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals, 2015
Baruch College student Sebastian Franco ’16 has been awarded the prestigious Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX) for Young Professionals Fellowship. The CBYX is a fellowship funded by the German Bundestag and U.S. Congress that annually provides 75 American and 75 German Young Professionals the opportunity to spend one year in each other’s countries, studying, interning, and living with hosts in a cultural immersion program.
Tamar Lichter
College: Macaulay Honors College | Queens College
Awards: Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, 2016
Tamar Lichter (Macaulay Honors College at Queens College, ’17) has won a 2016 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, the most prestigious undergraduate award in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Lichter intends to pursue a doctorate in mathematics after earning her bachelor’s degree.
Carlsky Belizaire
College: Macaulay Honors College | Queens College
Awards: Charles B. Rangel Graduate Fellowship, 2016; Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship, 2015
Carlsky Belizaire (Macaulay Honors College at Queens College, ’15) has received a 2016 Charles B. Rangel Graduate Fellowship, awarded to outstanding seniors and college graduates who want to join the Foreign Service. The Rangel Program annually selects 30 outstanding fellows in a highly competitive nationwide process and helps support them through two years of graduate study, internships and professional development activities, and entry into the Foreign Service. Carlsky had also won a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Taiwan in 2015.
Angelina Volkoya
College: Kingsborough Community College | Hunter College
Awards: National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 2016
Angelina Volkova (Kingsborough Community College alumnus and Hunter College student) has won a 2016 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship worth $138,000 over three years to determine which microorganism are best at biodegrading which plastics – and what specific genes work that magic.
Jake Levin
College: Macaulay Honors College | Brooklyn College
Awards: New York City Urban Fellowship 2016; Truman Scholarship, 2015
Jacob (Jake) Levin (Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, B.A., political science and philosophy, history minor, ’16) has been selected for NYC Urban Fellows Program for 2016-2017. In 2015, Jake Levin received the prestigious Harry S. Truman Scholarship for public service, one of only nine CUNY students to receive the award to date. He is also a Hertog Scholar and a Lisa Goldberg-Revson Scholar.
Aurela Dragani
College: Borough of Manhattan Community College
Awards: Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship, 2016
Aurela Dragani was born and raised in the city of Shkoder, in northwestern Albania. “I was only two years old when Albania was hit by massive riots, anarchy and civil war,” she says. “This, together with the 1999 war in Kosovo, helped make me the person I am today.” She graduates from BMCC in June 2016, having maintained a 4.0 GPA and working as a lab assistant on a cellular research project led by Science Professor Mario Benavides. In addition to winning the Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer scholarship, Aurela is a recipient of the BMCC Foundation Loretta Lee scholarship and a member of Phi Theta Kappa. She hopes to attend Columbia University in Fall 2016.
Brian Davis
College: City College | The Graduate College
Awards: Fulbright Scholarship, 2016
Brian Davis (City College, M.A., ’10) is a doctoral candidate in social-personality psychology at The Graduate Center, and an adjunct lecturer at Hunter College. Brian is collaborating with Japanese researchers on a mixed-methods comparative study on attitudes toward same-sex sexuality in New York and Tokyo, Japan, which forms the foundation of his dissertation project. To complement his doctoral research, he has won a 2016 Fulbright grant. Brian also serves as a board member of Research Institute Without Walls, one of the only non-governmental organization in the world whose focus is training and research on the mental health needs of persons worldwide seeking asylum in the U.S. who face persecution based on gender identity and sexual orientation in their countries of origin.
Jamel Love
College: John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Awards: National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship 2016; American Political Science Minority Fellowship 2015
Jamel Love has won a 2016 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. He received his (B.A). in Political Science from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Love was part of the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program at John Jay that prepared undergraduate students for the process of applying to Ph.D. programs. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Political Science at Rutgers University. In 2015, he won a American Political Science Association Minority Fellowship.
David Kanbergs
College: Hunter College
Awards: Beinecke Scholarship 2016
David Kanbergs, a junior majoring in anthropology and Middle Eastern studies, has won the Beinecke Scholarship, a major, nationally competitive prize. He is also a winner of the U.S. Department of Education’s 2016 FLAS fellowship – which is funding his trip to Morocco this summer to study Arabic and live with a host family. A native of Berkeley, Calif., Kanbergs moved to New York in 2009, and chose Hunter because it was affordable and highly recommended by friends. His experience here, he says, has exceeded his greatest expectations.
Hilliary Frank
College: Lehman College
Awards: Jeannette K Watson Fellowship, 2016
Hilliary Frank, a sophomore of Lehman College, has won the Jeannette K Watson Fellowship, a highly selective fellowship that develops the potential of promising students to become effective and humane leaders. She is currently interning at the American Museum of Natural History as a Digital Learning Fellow.
Solomon Mensah
College: City College
Awards: National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 2016
Solomon Mensah (City College, ’14), now a doctorate student in bioengineering, Northeastern University, has won a 2016 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to study intercellular interactions in cancer and cardiovascular diseases. He also received a Northeastern grant to develop a prototype for his bubble continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine for newborns who suffer respiratory distress. In the future, Mensah foresees developing orthopedic spine implants and bone-healing wearables.