2023 Scholarship Recipients
WTS Metropolitan Phoenix Chapter Scholarship Program
Congratulations to our 2023 winners below!
Each year, the WTS Metropolitan Phoenix Chapter offers scholarships to assist qualified candidates aspiring to transportation careers.
Lukah Seylor
Support Sky Harbor Coalition Scholarship
Lukah chose Aerospace Engineering for his undergraduate studies because he enjoys and excels in math and science, and he’s intrigued by the opportunity to learn more about how engineers design aircraft and spacecraft. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Lukah’s goal is to ensure an equitable workforce for all and make an impact on people’s lives.
Mihir Aranala
Friends of Transit Scholarship
Mihir is a second-year Master student in Urban and Environmental Planning at Arizona State University. He comes from a design background with his undergraduate degree in architecture, where he worked on housing, street renewal, and urban design projects. Mihir is currently a planning intern in AECOM’s transit/rail group, developing his data, spatial analysis, graphical, and GIS mapping skills. Mihir often takes innovative and creative approaches to problem-solving and uses various tools, such as python and story mapping, for analysis and visualization. As an international student, he brings different perspectives and diversity into transportation and transit planning, aiming to incorporate equity across various scales. As a planning professional,
Mihir wants to be involved with JEDI initiatives, labs, think tanks, and leaders making our cities more inclusive and equitable.
Brooke Hampton
Molitoris Leadership Scholarship for Undergraduates
Brooke Hampton is an ASU student pursuing a Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering with a concentration in Sustainability and a minor in Design Studies. She serves as secretary/event manager of the Advancing Women In Construction (AWIC) organization and has the privilege of stepping into the presidential role this fall. Through AWIC, she discovered how civil plays a crucial part in the
construction field all while being surrounded and supported by like-minded women. This has led her to great personal and
professional growth and has introduced her to opportunities in the transportation industry, such as being a part of Valley Metro’s Engineers of the Future program last spring where she acted as a mentor to junior high students working on a bridge project. She envisions herself excelling in the design sector of transit work.
Sara Pimentel
Helene M. Overly/Esther Kmetty Memorial Scholarship
Sara is currently pursuing a Master of Urban and Environmental Planning at Arizona State University and received her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Gonzaga University (Go Zags!). She is originally from and grew up in Southern California, but has lived all over from Juneau, Alaska to Senegal, West Africa where she served two years with the Peace Corps. She has always had a strong interest in public transportation, but it was her experience living car-free in Senegal that really cemented her decision to pursue transportation planning. Since May 2022, Sara has worked with Valley Metro as their Service Planning Intern. When she graduates in the Spring, she hopes to enter the workforce as a Transportation Planner.
Morgan Mallek
Sharon D. Banks Memorial Undergraduate Scholarship
Morgan Mallek is currently a junior at Northern Arizona University studying Geographic Science and Community Planning with an emphasis in Human-Environmental Systems. This major perfectly aligns with her passion for people and the space that they occupy and how all of these things interact. Public transportation has long been an interest of hers because it matches this passion. She has lived in Arizona for most of her life, but recently she had the opportunity to study abroad in the Czech Republic. This experience strengthened her belief in the importance of public transportation systems. She hopes to extend the experience and perspective she gained abroad to improve transit here in the U.S. Aside from her academic and professional interests, she loves hiking, gardening, traveling, and spending time with her two dogs.
Shiraz Malul
AzTA Transit Planning Graduate Scholarship
Shiraz is a first-generation graduate student studying Urban and Environmental Planning at Arizona State University. She is passionate about multi-modal mobility planning and believes that all modes of transportation should be accessible, efficient, and safe for all users. She is inspired by her own experiences using transit, cycling, and walking throughout the growing suburbs
of Florida and Arizona. Currently, Shiraz is an intern at Valley Metro where she works on capital and sustainability transit projects. Following her graduation this May 2023, she plans to work in alternative transportation planning, where she can use her experience to champion human-centric communities that are accessible, resilient, and equitable.
Masih Beheshti
Support Sky Harbor Coalition Scholarship
Masih is pursuing his PhD in Civil Engineering, with a focus on numerical modeling, fracture analysis, and data analysis at
Arizona State University. Currently, he works as a Graduate Research Associate for Dr. Hasan Ozer on development of a mechanistic empirical model for reflective cracking for airport asphalt overlay design. He always tries to apply and develop more efficient and novel numerical tools for reducing the computational costs associated with complex design methods, providing a more applicable and accurate tools that can be used by the agencies.