Charlene Drake Scholarship
Previous Recipients
2023 Drake Scholar
Amalachukwu Okoye
Loyola University
My career goal is to become a therapist for victims of sexual abuse. Before I can achieve this, I must obtain my Bachelor, Master, and License. I am currently on track to graduate with not only my undergraduate degree but also with honours.
I am fortunate enough to be able to apply to the Loyola Five Year program so that I am able to complete my Master’s degree in one year and be even closer to starting my career. I am passionate and eager to be one of the few black social workers and therapists because I believe in representation. Being able to be an ally in someone's healing journey as I have been both a victim and healed. I believe in taking all experiences as lessons so that I am able to best serve my future clients. Education and self-improvement are very important to me, progress may not be steady, but it should be continuous.
I also want to push the needle forward in terms of increasing the representation of black nuclear engineers. Unfortunately, there aren’t many black people in the program. I want to provide a positive representation of the program to encourage other
black people to join. I also want to enlighten my peers outside of the black community
and show that black people can grow and excel within this field.
While an undergraduate, I will major in nuclear energy and go into probabilistic risk assessment. I also want to research safely reducing the radiological exposure that nuclear power plant workers face. I plan to go to graduate school for plasma engineering as well.
The Charlene Drake Scholarship is open to undergraduate members of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated.