Claire Preston of Delta, B.C. and Rami Saab of Belleville, ON, are on their way to McMaster as part of the inaugural group of 40 recipients of $60,000 Schulich Leader Scholarships who will study at 20 selected Canadian universities.

The Schulich Leader Scholarships annual program recognizes students across Canada who demonstrate excellence in academics or community leadership, or both, and plan to study one of the STEM subjects: Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics.

Every high school, secondary school and CEGEP (in Quebec) was eligible to nominate one student to compete for the four-year scholarship. This year there were 977 Schulich Leader Nominees.

Preston is the nominee for Delta Secondary School, while Saab is representing Bellevilles Centennial Secondary School.

“My hope now is that I can live up to this honour,” says Preston, whose interests range from physics, engineering and biology to painting and playing music. “I love analyzing things and trying to understand better how things in our universe work. Whenever a piece falls in place, more puzzles emerge. This is what makes learning about the world so exciting for me.”

“I hope it is the first step in a journey to produce positive change in my world,”says Saab, an active community volunteer who is also a soccer player, swimmer and saxophonist. “Science and technology have never failed to challenge, inspire, and amaze me. I chose McMaster because of its innovative and diverse engineering program.”

The scholarships were created by Canadian business leader and philanthropist Seymour Schulich. In addition to the Canadian program, a similar program is being carried out in Israel.

The $100-million scholarship initiative was implemented to secure the future economic competitiveness of Canada and Israel and is designed to ensure that future Canadian and Israeli leaders are among the next pioneers of global scientific research and innovation.

In 2012, there will be 10 Israeli Schulich Leaders in addition to the 40 Canadian Schulich Leaders.