Fish & Richardson Awards Space Camp Scholarships to Three Local Students

Fish & Richardson announced today that full scholarships have been awarded to three Redwood City middle school students – Jasson Arana, Eugenio Ramos Gallegos, and Fabiola Rubero – to attend the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama this summer. The goal of Fish’s Space Camp Scholarship program – which the firm has run for 17 consecutive years – is to get middle school students excited about the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Fish attorneys – including Leeron Kalay & Emily Petersen Garff who run the program in Silicon Valley – select the scholarship winners based on a written application and an in-person interview. Each year, Fish sends 33 students – from economically disadvantaged areas in the 11 cities across the country where the firm has offices – along with teacher chaperones to Space Camp.

In Redwood City, the students were selected from the Selby Lane School, which strives to empower and challenge all students to achieve educational excellence. The scholarship winners – who receive full tuition, round-trip airfare, and accommodations – will spend six days at Space Camp experiencing simulated space shuttle missions, participating in programs on space exploration, and learning about mission control.

“We have sent over 400 students to Space Camp since we first launched this scholarship program in 1999. It is a privilege for us to be a part of encouraging these students’ love of STEM and to provide the spark that may put them on a path to careers in these growing fields,” said Howard Pollack, managing principal of Fish’s Silicon Valley office. “The STEM fields are a critical foundation for our country’s future economic success, so it is important to get more young people excited about these professions and the opportunities they present.”

After the students return from Space Camp, many of them meet with the attorneys from Fish to “report on their mission” and talk about their experiences as junior astronauts for a week. For the attorneys, it is another opportunity to encourage the students to keep on exploring STEM and to excel in their studies when they return to school in the fall.