Megan Pitts, a senior at Hamilton Southeastern High School, and Owen Vogelgesang, a senior at Noblesville High School, are among the first recipients of the Luddy Scholarship, the most prestigious scholarship awarded by the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University.
Luddy Scholars are afforded exclusive opportunities to interact with tech leaders, faculty, and alumni who will help students build their networks while enabling the next generation of STEM leaders create transformative solutions who will change the world. Luddy Scholars also enjoy programs featuring tech visionaries from strategic locations around the United States.
Pitts was selected for the award based on her academic excellence and community service, as well as her passion math and science. She plans to major in informatics at Luddy. Volgelgesang earned the honor based on his volunteer work and community service, as well as his passion for information technology and programming. He plans to major in intelligent systems engineering at Luddy.
The Luddy Scholars program was established in 2019 as part of a gift from IU alumnus and founder and chairman of the board of ServiceNow Fred Luddy. Luddy’s $60 million gift – the second-largest private donation in the history of Indiana University – sought to invest in the people of the Luddy School and the students of the state of Indiana. The Luddy Scholars program supports high-achieving Hoosier students who earn a minimum GPA of 3.8 and a Scholastic Aptitude Test score of at least 1,410 or an ACT score of at least 32.
“We’re tremendously excited to welcome the first recipients of the Luddy Scholarship,” said Dennis Groth, interim dean of the Luddy School. “Our students will be the technology innovators of tomorrow, and the Luddy Scholars will take on a leadership role at our school as an example of what can be accomplished through determination and a willingness to discover new solutions to the problems that impact our daily lives. They will showcase the best that the Hoosier state has to offer in technology.”
About the Luddy School
Established in 2000, the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering is one of the broadest of its kind. Blending the fields of computer science, informatics, intelligent systems engineering, information and library science and data science, the Luddy School is home to more than 3,000 students from the United States and around the world. The forward-looking School’s faculty are world-renowned experts in their respective fields and lead the way in critical areas such as artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, high performance computing, programming languages, security, healthcare, human-computer interaction, computer engineering, bioengineering, and AI-driven-engineering. Computer and information sciences research expenditures are ranked 12th in the country.