RWU grants scholarship to Chariho GRRL

(Corrected, 1:45 p.m.)

BRISTOL – Roger Williams University awarded a four-year scholarship to Susan Woodard, a senior at Chariho Regional High School, during the ninth annual GRRL Tech Interactive Technology Expo, held Friday on the university’s campus.

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More than 400 high school girls from across Rhode Island attended this year’s GRRL (short for Girls Reaching Remarkable Levels) event, the university said.

They learned about science and technology career opportunities from Roger Williams faculty members and female professionals from local companies and organizations including Amgen Inc., Atrion Networking Corp. and Epivax Inc. They covered topics ranging from mathematics and marine science to theater and media technology.

The annual expo – organized by the Tech Collective, a nonprofit alliance of Rhode Island information technology and biotech companies – has been hosted by Roger Williams for the past four years.

Amgen was the premier sponsor of this year’s expo. Other sponsors were Atrion, EpiVax, Junior Achievement of Rhode Island, the Governor’s Workforce Board of Rhode Island and Workforce Partnerships of Greater Rhode Island.

“In our work force today, only one in every four technology professionals is a woman,” said Jo Ann Johnson, Tech Collective’s manager of youth and education programs. “We are changing that statistic through events like GRRL Tech.”

The scholarship winner, Woodard, was chosen by the expo’s organizers thanks to her essay describing her interest in civil and environmental engineering. She contacted GRRL Tech on her own with a request to attend, rather than going with her high school as most students do.

Besides full tuition to RWU, Woodard will receive a $1,000 per year stipend for textbooks. The cost of one year’s tuition at Roger Williams will be $27,840 for full-time students next year, according to the university’s Web site.

Additional information is available at tech-collective.org.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly said this was the fifth year Roger Williams hosted GRRL Tech, rather than the fourth year.