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Austintown alumni awarded for environmental studies
AUSTINTOWN
Paying college bills to Ashland University became an added stress for Rosalie Sepesy, 21, of Austintown, after she was hospitalized in May due to a two-car accident in Lorain County. Sepesy and three students from Ashland University were hospitalized from the crash.
“It was definite I would go back to college,” said Sepesy, a senior biology major at Ashland University. “But I had a lot of medical bills, so there was added stress of those bills to pay.”
Sepesy got a break on some of her tuition bills for next semester, as she received a $2,500 scholarship from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Education Fund for her research in environmentalism. She was one of two Austintown alumni to receive the awards this year. The awards were announced recently.
Sepesy and Alex Sofranko, 21, a senior environmental-engineering major at Ohio State University, were the two Austintown recipients of the award. The Austintown winners were two of 20 to get the award.
Sofranko said he knows other students from his university who applied for the scholarship.
“The fact that they chose me out of [the rest of] them is nice,” Sofranko said. “To this point, I’ve never received an academic scholarship for my field I study.”
Sofranko said he and Sepesy graduated from Austintown Fitch High School together in 2011. Both students said their academic advisers encouraged them to apply for the scholarship last spring.
Sepesy said the application included letters of recommendation, personal essays about environmentalism and research experience.
For the award, Sepesy researched zooplankton and bio-indicators for wetland environments for more than a year; Sofranko researched ultrasonic waves and their effects on water contaminants for several months.
Both students said they have a passion for working in environmental fields some day. Sofranko said he hopes to help developing countries get better access to clean water, and Sepesy said she hopes to work in wildlife rehabilitation.
The Ohio EPA has distributed this award for 14 years. Since it began, it has awarded $691,200 to 281 Ohio students to motivate them to continue to enter environmental fields.
The deadline for applying for the scholarship for next school year is April 15, 2015. For more information, call Ohio’s EPA Office of Environmental Education at 614-644-2873.