Life & Work with Karina Ascunce Gonzalez of Hialeah

Today we’d like to introduce you to Karina Ascunce Gonzalez.

Hi Karina, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Karina Ascunce Gonzalez, and I am an incoming 4th year PhD candidate in Neuroscience at Yale University. My two high school friends, Derek Velez and Therese Cordero-Dumit, and I started the Estudiante que Progresa Scholarship with the thought: “What if we gave back to the Hialeah community with a scholarship for students with financial need who are interested in studying STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) in college?” We all come from backgrounds that represent the grit and perseverance of Hialeah, “la ciudad que progresa” (the city of progress). It made sense, then, to name the scholarship after our hometown and its moving motto of progress. That’s how the “Estudiante Que Progresa” idea was born!

It took us a bit to get it off the ground, but we are now in the 3rd year of the scholarship and have awarded the scholarship to 4 outstanding and promising students from Hialeah, and this year, we even received generous financial support from a Miami/Hialeah-based business, Skintique Miami, to expand our scholarship efforts. We are hoping to continue growing the scholarship in the years to come!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a perfectly smooth road, because it was difficult to make sure the opportunity reached eligible students on an appropriate timeline. We wanted to build a credible platform, so early on we relied a lot on word-of-mouth to spread the news that there was a new scholarship in town! Now, we get many more scholarship applications than what we can award, so we’re hoping to be able to support a larger number of students in future years!

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Estudiante que Progresa, Inc. is an organization dedicated to providing scholarships and mentoring to college-bound students from Hialeah who are interested in studying STEM topics and have financial need.

We are most proud of our own roots. All three founders of Estudiante que Progresa are from Hialeah and its surrounding areas, and we’ve spent our careers in STEM fields, attending universities including Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, and MIT. We hope our expertise in our respective fields will be of use to the students we select as Estudiante Que Progresa Scholars. We care most about empowering the students of Hialeah, who are the next generation of “progress” for the city! Our past scholars have gone on to study biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering, and other STEM majors at schools like University of Florida and Florida State University.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
We are so proud of the mission of Estudiante que Progresa, and we are especially proud of the students of Hialeah who have applied and been awarded this scholarship; they are trailblazers and represent the future STEM leaders of this city and country.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://estudiantequeprogr.wixsite.com/hialeah
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/estudiantequeprogresa/

Image Credits
Taylor Peterson (for headshot)