College announces 2023 Alumni Society Scholarships

The College of Arts and Architecture awarded eight Arts and Architecture Alumni Society Scholarships to students representing every academic unit, plus World Campus.

The awards were established by the Alumni Society in 1998. In the years since, college alumni and friends have generously donated to grow the endowment, increasing both the number and size of the awards.

This year the Alumni Society Board presented the scholarships in honor of Joyce Hoffman, longtime director of alumni relations, who recently retired and was a consistent champion of the awards.

The recipients are:

Architecture: Marisa Calbi

Calbi is a fourth-year B.Arch. student currently studying abroad at the Pantheon Institute in Rome. Her goal is to become a licensed architect in the New York and New Jersey area.

Art History: Ronan Shaw

Shaw is pursuing a dual bachelor's degree in fine arts and art history, as well as a certificate in museum studies. Drawing upon his travels to Europe and Latin America, his scholarship considers the way individuals conceptualized their relationship to history through visual arts in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has won awards for his proficiency in the Italian language. After graduation, Rónán plans to pursue a Ph.D. in art history with the goal of becoming a curator.

Graphic Design: Sara Meola

Meola is a third-year graphic design major who is also working toward a certificate in information sciences and technology. Her design interests include branding and UX/UI design. Outside school, she has been heavily involved in extracurriculars and clubs, including THON, the Penn State Lyrical Line dance team, and the Design Association.

Landscape Architecture: Tegan Lochner

Lochner is a third-year landscape architecture major. She admires this profession's ability to combine art, social justice, and ecology into one cohesive narrative, and finds joy in fusing unusual combinations of knowledge and mixing graphic mediums to create designs rich in nuance and detail.

Music: Alex Almonte

Almonte, a Dominican and Filipino American baritone singer from Pittsburgh, is a third-year student pursuing a Bachelor of Music Education degree in the studio of Dr. Norman Spivey.  Through performance and education, Alex hopes to inspire the next generation of artists and musicians.

Theatre: Jacob Malizio

Malizio is a director, actor, and playwright studying theatre studies and public relations. He belongs to several theatre organizations in the area, including No Refund Theatre, The Blue Brick Theatre, and the Penn State Thespian Society. This summer, he will intern at the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera in its public relations department.

Visual Arts: Sierra Brandon

Brandon is a third-year student majoring in digital arts and media design. Prior to attending Penn State, she earned an associate's degree in graphic design at Bucks County Community College. Sierra is the treasurer of the Digital Media Group, works at Campus Recreation as a graphic designer, and is a multimedia production specialist for the College of Information Sciences and Technology.

World Campus: Monica Wilson

PHOTO

Second row from left: Alex Almonte, Jacob Malizio, Sierra Brandon