The 2021 National Leadership Grant Recipients

ALESSIA WELCH

The Charles Evans Scholarship

Hometown: Dallas, TX School: University of California San Diego – La Jolla, California • Earned a perfect score of 36 on the

ACT and an unweighted 4.0 at Ursuline

Academy of Dallas * Completed over 650 hours of community service volunteering for the Dallas Zoo as a Zoo Crew Volunteer,

Global Elementary Model United Nations as Secretary

General, and the Dallas Mavericks as a Ball Kid • Competes as a figure skater for the Dallas Figure Skating Club

ALEXANDER DENNIS

Columbus Citizens Foundation Scholarship

Hometown: Franklin, MI School: University of Michigan Medical School – Ann Arbor, MI • Received a Fulbright Student Award to teach English in Campobasso (Molise region), where he taught in classrooms with curricula focusing on economics, marketing, and international relations • Joined a local theater school in Campobasso, where he taught improvisational acting courses in Italian • Spent the 2020 summer translating his grandfather’s memoirs into English from the Barese dialect of Italian

AMANDA COCCIA

The Anthony J. & Eldora B. Perfilio Scholarship for Italian Language

Hometown: Medford, NY School: Middlebury College – Middlebury, VT • Presented at the Middlebury College

Spring Student Symposium on the History of Italian American Food (in Photos) • Awarded scholarships from the National Organization for Italian American Women (NOIAW) and the National

Italian American Foundation (NIAF) to continue her Italian language studies • Awarded a scholarship through the Italian American

Committee on Education (IACE) to participate in their

Summer Program studying Italian and experiencing Italian culture in Narni, Italy (Umbria region), for two weeks in collaboration with the Narnia Arts Festival

and California Scholarship Federation member • Served as FIRST Robotics Team 1351 Vice President and was FIRST Dean’s List Semi-Finalist • Served as Staff Writer for The Monarch, Archbishop Mitty

High School’s student newspaper

BENNETT DiDENTE COMERFORD

The Lucia & Antonio De Vico Family Scholarship

Hometown: Bend, OR School: Harvard University/Harvard Divinity School – Cambridge, MA • Received the Italian Book Award,

Boston College Romance Languages and Literatures Department • Awarded the U.S. Department of State Critical Language

Scholarship • Received the Harvard University Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning Certificate of Distinction for Teaching

CATHERINE CAVANAUGH

The Franzone Family Scholarship

Hometown: Lansdale, PA School: University of Pittsburgh – Pittsburgh, PA • Named 2021 U.S. Presidential Scholar and received National Honor Society Scholarship • Performed at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in the

Nashville Fields of Gold Honors Orchestra • Founded the Spanish Translation Project, helping hundreds of student learn biology, health, and chemistry in five countries and 13 states

COLE MCCUBBINS

The DeSantis/Giuffrida Scholarship

Hometown: Salt Lake City, UT School: University of Cambridge – Cambridge, United Kingdom • Graduated magna cum laude from the

University of Utah • Recognized for his novel economic research on food insecurity and disruptive technologies • Became the first in his family to acquire Italian citizenship by jure sanguinis

ANTHONY ZITO

The Henry F. Salvatori Memorial Scholarship

Hometown: San Jose, CA School: California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo, CA • Earned Principal’s Honor Roll eight times and is a National Honor Society

ESTER LUNA

The Lido Club of Washington, DC Scholarship

Hometown: Washington, DC School: Yale University – New Haven, CT • Speaks three native languages (Italian,

English, and French) and is fluent in

Chinese and Spanish

• Works as a freelance translator from/into Italian, French, and English for the nonprofits conSLAncio and American Friends of Chartres • Published poems, short stories, and theatre reviews, and illustrates for teen journals

FELICIA RAGUCCI

The Franzone Family Scholarship

Hometown: Tewksbury, MA School: Dartmouth College – Hanover, NH • Interned at the Centers for Disease

Control (CDC) Headquarters from

January to March 2020, during which she explored science communications and helped the Quarantine Branch respond to the rapidly emerging

COVID-19 pandemic • Interned at the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration (NASA) Headquarters from September 2020 to May 2021 and completed a space history research project for an upcoming e-book • Won the Albert I. Dickerson 1930 Freshman Writing Prize at Dartmouth in 2019, which is awarded to a first-year student who writes “an outstanding expository essay”

FRANCESCA MARINI

The Joseph Sciame Scholarship

Hometown: Sagamore Beach, MA School: University of Pennsylvania – Philadelphia, PA • Graduated summa cum laude in

May 2021 from the University of

Pennsylvania and will graduate from there in 2022 with a Master of Science in Engineering in Computer &

Information Science • Worked in Natural Language Processing research (a branch of machine learning) and co-authored two research publications • Is a United States Figure Skating Gold Medalist in Moves in the Field and was a member of the founding board of the

UPenn Figure Skating Club, serving as Treasurer and Show

Director

GABRIELLA WHITED

The Pietro Secchia Memorial Scholarship

Hometown: San Francisco, CA School: John Cabot University – Rome, Italy • Invited to speak at the “Stronger Than You Think” program to address mental wellness for teens in 2020 • Wrote, published, and learned how to digitally distribute her first song called “I keep on falling” when she was 16 • Started a small online e-commerce store called Diavoline when she was 17

JOHN VANETTI

The Angelo Tomasso Sr. Scholarship

Hometown: Louisville, KY School: Purdue University – West LaFayette, IN • Graduated from Kentucky Governor’s

Scholars Program • Graduated from Trinity High School as a Top Ten Honor

Graduate • Worked as a Seeds of Change Biological Researcher in

Costa Rica

JULIANNA BIBBO

The Cappellotti Family Scholarship

Hometown: Pasadena, MD College: Villanova University – Villanova, PA • Was the only student in her high school to receive all three honors awarded for service/scholarship, outstanding school spirit, and personal character • Founded the organization “Cards2Care4Teens,” which designs and distributes support cards for teens facing health and/or economic hardships • Received both the United States President’s Gold Level

Volunteer Service Award and Maryland Governor’s

Volunteer Service Commendation

SAMANTHA PIROZZOLO

The American University of Rome/ Sons of Italy Foundation Scholarship

Hometown: Staten Island, NY School: The American University of Rome – Rome, Italy • Worked in four foreign countries, including Zimbabwe as a stable manager, China as an Au pair, South Korea as a farm hand, and Italy as a resident advisor for the university • Learned how to ride horses in the African bush in Zimbabwe • Took Mandarin lessons at the Beijing Foreign Studies

University and scored a 100 on the HSK1 exam (first of the standardized language proficiency tests)

SERGIO VALENTE

The Peter & Jeri DeJana Foundation Law Scholarship

Hometown: Palo Alto, CA School: Stanford Law School – Stanford, CA • Serves as a leader of the Clean Slate Pro

Bono Project at Stanford Law School, which helps former convicts expunge their criminal records and reintegrate into society • Won debate tournaments at Carnegie Mellon University,

George Washington University, and Johns Hopkins University • Studied abroad in Rome, Italy, when he was 14 and took all classes in Italian despite not speaking the language at the time