Carnegie Mellon University

Scholar Class of 2014-2015

Josh Claudio

Josh Claudio

English, Scholar Class of 2014-2015

Bio

Born and raised in Bethlehem, PA, Joshua spent most of his childhood years tucked into comfortable nooks of the house with a book in his hands. He was immediately immersed in the idea of storytelling, and he has been writing stories ever since. It was not a surprise to friends or family when he ended up attending Carnegie Mellon University for Creative Writing. Here at CMU, Joshua has had the incredible opportunity to pursue story through a wealth of mediums, specializing in fiction and screenwriting. While at Carnegie Mellon, Joshua also developed a passion for community service and outreach through the promotion of literacy and storytelling. During his time at Carnegie Mellon, Joshua has served as Editing Manager for Dossier Literary Magazine, an intern for the CMU International Film Festival, and a member of the CMU Filmmaking Club. He is currently the head of the Andrew Ambassadors for the CMU Office of Admissions, an Andrew Carnegie Society Scholar, and a member of the Sigma Tau Delta English Honors Society. Joshua has also spent time conducting literacy research in the CMU Children’s School. This past summer, Joshua interned at Nickelodeon Television Network in New York. For his fifth-year, Joshua will be advancing his studies in Film, Psychology, and Modern Languages as well as expanding a creative writing program in the local Pittsburgh schools as an opportunity for to local students to explore storytelling through a variety of mediums.  

Zhijun Huang

Zhijun Huang

Economics and Mathematical Sciences, Statistics and Computational Finance, Scholar Class of 2014-2015

Bio

“Carnegie Mellon provides me with extensive resources to reinforce and achieve my personal and professional goals. In this fifth year, I am very excited to apply all of my past experience in scholarship, entrepreneurship, and charity to my community impact project – HouseLife. My intent is to offer Pittsburgh residents a more efficient, safer platform for finding off-campus housing and selecting roommates.”

Scholarship, entrepreneurship, and charity are the impetus of Zhijun’s objectives. Having taken a series of statistics, mathematics, and economics courses at Carnegie Mellon, she has developed a very rich, multi-disciplinary academic background. Through this challenging coursework, she has gained experience in the realms of quantitative analysis, analytical thinking and econometric research. Additionally, through extracurricular activities starting at the age of 16, she has developed skills in project management, advertising, and fundraising – by founding 3 projects (a library reconstruction initiative, the donation of thirty laptops to elite students, and general service activities) that generated over $25,000 in funding for earthquake relief in the affected areas of Sichuan, China. Her primary research project, HouseLife, aims to liaise with local government agencies to commoditize under-utilized properties—while harnessing the existing ones—to rectify the supply/demand mismatch. This framework also seeks to optimize the pairing between potential tenants of a shared property (i.e., houses, garages, lofts, etc.). One of her inherent research goals is to establish an insular community, involving tenants, property managers, and subcontractors. Finally, the Fifth-Year Scholars program will also find Zhijun pursuing a variety of other hobbies and interests, such as imparting Chinese language and culture by offering a StuCo in Chinese Classical Literature and serving as a teaching assistant for the Modern Language department.

Sejal Popat

Sejal Popat

Art, Logic and Computation, Scholar Class of 2014-2015

Bio

"Throughout my time at CMU I've met and learned from an amazing range of people whose perspectives and stories have fascinated and astounded me. Despite this, I've found that it is still easy to become engrossed in the stress of academics when school is in full swing and we are racing to finish each assignment on time. My project is an attempt to pry CMU students out of this mindset and to broaden our perspectives even just briefly, so that we can notice each other's stories and perspectives."

Sejal is an avid fan of art and puzzles. She has loved drawing since she could grip a crayon and began to oil paint in high school. Soon after this she became addicted to portraiture and to this day has trouble resisting the urge to paint people. Sejal entered CMU as a BHA student studying History and Art. But after discovering the joy of proofs she ended up switching from History to Logic & Computation. She is interested in the power language, mathematics, and visuals in communicating ideas.