Four first-year engineers receive faculty’s largest scholarship

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/rebeccagagnon.jpg” caption=”Rebecca Gagnon, starting her first year in engineering this week, credits her many extracurriculars – including competing at the World Karate Federation National Championships – as helping her win one of this year’s Hatch Scholarships. The $12,000 per year award is the faculty’s largest. Photo courtesy Rebecca Gagnon.”]Ancaster resident Rebecca Gagnon hopes the sky won't be the limit to her aspirations.

In between her many extracurricular activities, which include organizing food drives,
working in school stage productions, and tutoring peers in math and science, the first-
year engineering student is working toward her private pilot's licence – a fitting goal,
given she hopes to one day launch into outer space as an astronaut.

Come September, however, Gagnon will turn her attention to the more immediate goal
of earning a degree in engineering from McMaster. Like Robert Mastragostino, Nicholas
Bandiera and Romi Boimer, three other high-achieving soon-to-be first-year
engineering students, Gagnon has been awarded a $48,000 entrance scholarship from
Hatch, an engineering and management consultancy.

Gagnon said she's incredibly grateful for the scholarship, the largest in the Faculty of
Engineering.

“Getting the Hatch scholarship will allow me to devote my full attention to my academic
studies,” she said. “I'm very excited.”

The scholarship is awarded to students based on academic and leadership
achievements, which are found in spades amongst this year's recipients.

Mastragostino, also a native of Ancaster, has won awards for his work in math and
computer programming and has championed human rights issues at Bishop Tonnos
high school, where he has worked with the administration to better protect students
from discrimination.

“It's amazing, I'm ecstatic,” he said of being awarded a Hatch Scholarship.

In 2010 Bandiera, coming to McMaster from Oakville, led the team that won the best
prototype award at the Research In Motion/Shad Valley Entrepreneurship Cup, a
showcase of student innovation, with the development of an in-refrigerator device that
aids in the pouring of beverages.

Boimer, who hails from Thornhill, not only excels academically but has served on
student council, as a peer tutor and yearbook editor. Boimer has also earned a number
of leadership awards and is an active volunteer, working with those affected by
dementia and blindness.

The Hatch Scholarships are renewable for three years at $12,000 per year so long as the
student remains full-time and achieves a sessional average of 9.5 with no failures.