Local student earns $2.675M in scholarships

13th May 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Fritz Esker
Contributing Writer

When applying for colleges for fall 2019, Lusher Charter School senior Amaris Lewis reached for the stars. She applied to a dozen highly competitive schools: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, Tulane, USC, Carnegie Mellon and LSU. She got into all of them.

“Amaris represents the paragon of hard work, dedication, and love for knowledge,” said Lusher Charter CEO Kathy Riedlinger. “She is not only a brilliant and progressive thinker, but she is also a kind and generous person who really will make a difference in medical research.”

Not only did Lewis get into the schools, but she also received $2.675 million in scholarships, including the QuestBridge National College Match scholarship to attend Stanford for the full cost of attendance. She also received the Gates Scholarship, which covers full tuition at any U.S. college or university along with any study abroad programs. Lastly, she received the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation College Scholarship to cover any remaining cost of attendance up to $40,000.

Lewis, who grew up in Algiers, also received awards for her potential graduate studies. She won the only gold medal for the 2019 Emmy Noether Awards by the Joe W. and Dorothy Brown Foundation and will get $25,000 for each year she is in a graduate-level research program for up to three years. The Emmy Noether Awards honor the country’s top aspiring female research scientists in any STEM field by offering them financial assistance to help realize their career dreams.

Lewis’ academic accomplishments have been staggering throughout her high school career. She won the Grand Prize Award in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the Greater New Orleans Science and Engineering Fair in fall 2018. Her research investigated “the utility of a biomarker called CD-264 for identifying human stem cells that were more likely to proliferate and thus be better candidates for use in therapeutic conditions.”

In addition to this award, Lewis earned a 4.40 GPA at Lusher and was nominated as a U.S. Presidential Scholar candidate. She is also a National Merit Finalist.

After receiving all of these acceptance letters and awards, Lewis was overwhelmed, excited, and grateful. The first good news she received from a university was from Stanford in December of 2018. The northern California school was one that Lewis had targeted since she was a sophomore in high school. She remembers lying in bed the night she received her acceptance letter thinking “Wow, I really got into Stanford.”

Lewis’ achievements are not a surprise to those who know her. Heather Harper, the mother of one of Lewis’ classmates, said Lewis thoroughly earned and deserved her success.

“She is as kind and good as she is brilliant,” Harper said.

Even though Lewis received many acceptance letters after that first one, she has chosen to enroll in Stanford in the fall. She plans to study either bioengineering or biomedical computation. She said she chose Stanford in part because of its location in Silicon Valley and the valuable professional contacts she will able to gain in the area while completing her studies.

Once she finishes her undergraduate degree, Lewis hopes to go to medical school so she can get her MD-Ph.D and pursue a career in medical research. Lewis’ primary interest is in using stem cell therapies to treat neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

When asked to cite her role models and heroes, Lewis mentioned Dr. Jane Wright, an African-American scientist who did pioneering research in cancer treatment in the 1940s and 1950s. At Lusher, Lewis said Susan Gingold, her AP biology teacher, was an important mentor. Gingold challenged Lewis and showed her the ways in which the things students learned in class could be applied to the real world.

“In any given field of academic endeavor, there are invariably those individuals who, through their tenacity, dedication, and willingness to accept failure tower over their peers,” said Gingold. “Amaris Lewis has exerted an influence on her teachers and peers that will long endure.”

After graduation, Lewis will participate in the Bessie F. Lawrence International Summer Science Institute at the Weizmann Institute for Science in Israel. Lewis will be one of just 19 American students in the all-expenses-paid program. She will complete laboratory research alongside Weizmann scientists and meet bright young scholars from around the world.

The program will last for four weeks. It will not be Lewis’ first time abroad. She traveled to Paris last summer, but that experience was with other American students. This will be her first sustained exposure to students from other cultures and countries.

When she is not studying, Lewis has many other talents and hobbies. She plays the violin and the viola. She is a ballet dancer. In high school, she also swam competitively, mostly in the backstroke but also in the fly.

Lewis’ mother, Valerie, said she hopes her daughter will use her talent and intelligence to give back to the community and to serve as a role model for young scientists in the future. It’s a wish her daughter shares with her. But most of all, Valerie is as proud as any mother could be of her child.

“She has dedicated so much hard work and time to her studies,” Valerie Lewis said. “I want her to pursue her dreams wherever they may lead her.”

This article originally published in the May 13, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.