Zizi Yu
Zizi Yu, who graduated this past spring from Amity Regional High School in Woodbridge and is currently studying at Yale University, has received a Milton Fisher Scholarship for Innovation and Creativity, the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, which administers the program, announced last week.
According to its website, the scholarship program recognizes “exceptionally innovative and creative high school juniors, seniors and college freshmen who are a Connecticut or New York City metropolitan area resident planning to attend or attending an institution of higher education anywhere in the United States.”
The CFGNH announced in a press release that “more than $75,000 in college scholarships (payable over four years of college) was awarded this year to six high school students who came up with distinctive solutions to problems faced by their schools, communities, families, and the world. In addition, 10 high school students and college freshmen received honorable mention awards.”
In an e‑mail, Zu said, “The project that I submitted to the Milton Fisher Scholarship was an epidemiology/public health research project on food allergies that I completed during my junior and senior years in high school.”
For that work, Zu, the CFGNH’s press release indicates, Zu “was a finalist in the 2012 Intel Science Talent Search, and first author of an article published in the peer-reviewed Internet Journal of Epidemiology.”
Tricia Caldwell, the CFGNH’s communications manager, said in an e‑mail that Zu “received a $2,000 award, which is renewable for four years.”
Zu said, “I’m not yet sure what I’m going to be majoring in, but medicine and public health (the topic of my project) are definitely strong interests of mine and potential future paths for me.”
In addition to science, Zu has an interest in music. A longtime student of Yale School of Music faculty violinist Wendy Sharp, Zu won the Greater New Haven Youth Orchestra’s 2009 concerto competition and appeared as a soloist with that group in 2010.
Hamden High School student Hillary Dadio-Perone earned an $500 honorable mention award from the Milton Fisher Scholarship program.