Fish & Richardson Awards Space Camp Scholarships to Three Preuss School UCSD Students

Fish & Richardson announced today that three San Diego middle school students – Mario Rodriguez Alves, Kevin Nguyen and Gicel Abraham  – have been chosen to receive full scholarships to attend the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama this summer.  The goal of Fish’s Space Camp Scholarship program – which the firm has run for 16 years – is to get middle school students excited about the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Fish attorneys – including Daniel Chan, who leads the program in San Diego – select the scholarship winners based on a written application and an in-person interview.  Each year, Fish sends 33 students – from economically disadvantaged areas in the 11 cities across the country where the firm has offices – along with teacher chaperones to Space Camp. 

In San Diego, the students were selected from Preuss School UCSD, a unique charter middle and high school for low income, highly motivated students who strive to become the first in their families to graduate from college. The school, based on the campus of UCSD, has nearly 100 percent of its graduates go on to higher education.  

The scholarship winners spend six days at Space Camp experiencing simulated space shuttle missions, participating in programs on space exploration and learning about mission control.

“We started our Space Camp Scholarship program in 1999, and every year we feel privileged to provide this unique opportunity for these very impressive students,” said Roger Denning, managing principal of Fish’s Southern California office, based in San Diego.  “We hope that this once-in-a-lifetime experience will inspire the students to explore science and technology for the rest of their lives.” 

As participants in Fish’s Space Camp Scholarship program, the students receive full tuition to Space Camp, round-trip airfare and accommodations for themselves and their chaperones, spending money and a “flight spacesuit” to take home.  For many of the students, the trip to Space Camp is their first experience flying in an airplane and seeing a different part of the United States. Pruess School UCSD faculty member Carla Petraglia will accompany the students, who are in the sixth and seventh grades.