Schreyer Snapshots

Nora Van Horn receives the inaugural Changemaker Scholarship

Nora Van Horn, a spring 2022 Scholar alumna, has been awarded the inaugural Neil C. Patel Memorial Changemaker Honors Scholarship.

The Changemaker Scholarship was established in December 2021 in honor of its namesake, Neil Patel, who died from COVID-19 earlier that year. It honors Patel’s memory and recognizes Scholars who exemplify his commitment to family, community, education, and opportunity.

“Neil embodied the ideals envisioned for Schreyer Honors College community members,” said Patrick T. Mather, dean of Schreyer Honors College. “He did this through his interdisciplinary nature, community approach to learning, and genuine caring for his classmates. Because of that, and to encourage others to strive for those ideals, the legacy scholarship bearing Neil’s name is so very important to our college.”

Neil Patel’s commitment to making positive changes in his community will be remembered and honored through the annual awarding of the Changemaker Scholarship. Van Horn earned degrees in philosophy, Chinese, and global and international studies. She also poured time, effort, and energy into change- making endeavors that impacted the entire Penn State community. Van Horn created a department of sustainability within the University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA), and she helped to launch Penn State’s Environmental Sustainability Fund. Additionally, she took on an array of advocacy work to help change how Penn State addresses sexual violence.

On becoming the first recipient of the Changemaker Scholarship, Van Horn said she is honored to carry Neil Patel’s name and legacy with her.

“I had the opportunity to go to a celebration of life for Neil and talk with his family and friends to learn more about [Neil] and his life,” she said. “I was so moved by the stories they shared about his positivity and desire to make the world a better place.”

Chet Patel, Neil’s father, said that the family is proud that Van Horn was chosen as the inaugural recipient because she personifies so many of the values that mattered to his son. “Nora’s interests in morality, philosophy, and her work in sustainability at Penn State are evidence of commitment to bettering the lives of others, which was most important to our son, Neil,” Patel said. “We will be cheering her on as she makes an impact on the world for years to come.”

Mather agrees that the change Van Horn effected while at Penn State will go a long way to helping Neil Patel’s memory live on.

“Nora has unending energy, combined with a big heart. That’s a powerful combination that, when applied to change-leadership, is potent and worthy of the distinction bestowed by the inaugural Patel scholarship,” Mather said.

With her time at Penn State concluded, Van Horn will move on to Harvard Law for fall 2022, where the Changemaker Scholarship funding will assist her in her academic pursuits.

Support the Changemaker Scholarship at raise.psu.edu/NeilPatel

2021-2022 Student Awards

Astronaut Scholarship

Ellie Kim

Erickson Discovery Grants

Alessandro Ascani Orsini Nate Cherok Maya Debski Quinn Deitrick Sarah Esslinger Leah Gallo Allison Giombetti Leonardo Girlando Michael Hewitt Sara Jimenez Rincon Vincent Mariani Emily Meinert Hannah Mirshahi Rishika Patil Emma Petrick Timothy Pickarski Sopida Pimcharoen Angelina Santamaria Blaise Sava Ayush Sharma Julian Sim Safitaj Sindhar Claire Tse

Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships

Ellie Kim Jack Piazza

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

Victor Ginsburg Joshua Miller Edward Spagnuolo

SchREyER hoNoRS collEGE AwARDS The Paul Axt Prize

Jocelyn Krieger

The Evans Award

Sean Melanson

Bear Koehler Award Benjamin Wackerman

The Reddy Mission Award

Nicholas Birosik Grace Lemke Abigail O’Connell

2021 Student Involvement Award

Adwait Chafale

PENN STATE AwARDS 2022 Alumni Achievement Award

Alison V. Beam ‘08 Hhd Joshua Brady Branch ’13 Lib Sienna Helfrich ’14 Agr, ’14 Eng Therese Jones ‘09 Lib, ’09g Sci Stefen Wisniewski ’10 Edu

2022 Distinguished Alumni Award

Douglas Evans ’86 Eng, ’94g Idf

Finishing with a flourish: Chloe Mazer earns thesis award

Chloe Mazer, like her Scholar peers, spent years dedicated to the completion of her honors thesis project. She delivered a viable proposal, developed a command of scholastic work related to her topic, and made her own contribution to that scholarship. Then, when the time came, she submitted her work alongside other undergraduate theses to be considered for a significant award.

On May 5, 2022, one day before the Schreyer Medals Ceremony and two days before Penn State graduation, she received the Robert F. Guentter Jr. Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Award. Her work, “A Mixed Method Review of Cognitive Decline in the Older Incarcerated Adult Population,” earned her $1,250 as the grand prize recipient.

Scholar alumna Ava Self ’21 was named first runner-up and graduating Scholar Edward Spagnuolo was the second runner-up.

Mazer explained that the genesis for her thesis came during her second year thanks to “a biobehavioral health ethics class where I was tasked to write a series of three papers.”

While she didn’t specifically cover cognitive decline or dementia among the older prison population in those papers, Mazer, who minored in gerontology, developed a keen interest in issues affecting that group.

“As I started to dig into the research, I just saw a lot of things that made me sad and uncomfortable with the way that older incarcerated individuals are treated,” she said. “And a personal experience with dementia came from my grandmother’s dementia diagnosis.”

With the seed planted, Mazer began looking for resources to support her work. She first turned to Linda Wray, associate professor of biobehavioral health. She approached Wray to gauge her interest in a directed study on aging and health disparities.

“While I’m a gerontologist by training, it was over the course of the spring semester in 2020 when Chloe started talking about being interested in older incarcerated adults,” Wray said. “That topic was totally outside my area of expertise, so we asked Dr. Loeb to do a guest lecture on health and aging in older incarcerated adults.”

Dr. Loeb is Susan Loeb, professor of nursing and department of medicine, who, after her guest lecture, stayed on with Wray as a co-supervisor for Mazer’s thesis project.

“The fact that her interest area was so spot-on aligned with mine, I just couldn’t say no,” Loeb said. “It was a really rewarding experience. Chloe took control and was in charge of the ‘ship’ while we mentored her in the research process. We all brought different strengths to the table, and it was fabulous.”

With guidance from Loeb and Wray, Mazer determined that a mixed-method review was the best fit for her body of research and went to work. Along the way, she learned about making matrix tables and article selection trees. She discovered methods and measurements used to diagnose cognitive decline along with biological mechanisms underpinning the condition.

In her Robert F. Guentter Jr. Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Award presentation, Mazer shared her findings, processes, and methods and answered questions from the audience. All told, the eight-person award jury chose her work as the most outstanding among the three finalists. The committee chair, Benzak Business Librarian, and head of the Schreyer Business Library, Diane Zabel, detailed what elevated Mazer’s thesis to grand prize status.

“Her research project was rigorous and well designed, and she did an excellent job of providing background and context for the reader,” she said. “Chloe’s systematic review of the literature on cognitive functioning in incarcerated older adults has the potential to inform researchers, practitioners, and policymakers on this timely and important topic.”

Mazer, who describes herself as passionate about public health and developing health intervention programs and campaigns, shares the vision that her thesis can have a real-world impact on healthcare for older incarcerated adults living with cognitive decline.

“My hope is that future research can build upon what’s working, adopt [best practices] from nursing homes and directly apply it to the prison setting,” she said. “Better interventions [are needed] in the future because this problem is probably only going to get worse.”