UMaine’s Taylor Delp Wins Our First 2018 STEM Scholarship

$1000 STEM Scholarship Awarded to Aspiring Pediatric Neurologist Interested in Serving Underdeveloped Nations

We are very proud to announce the winner of our first 2018 IDSecurityOnline STEM Scholarship program!

University of Maine pre-med senior Taylor Delp will receive a $1000 award after being selected from dozens of highly qualified applicants asked to submit a 1,000-word essay that answered one of the following:

• Describe one major way in which you think businesses will have to adapt to advancements in technology in order to remain competitive in the next five years.
• What do you think has been the most important innovation in business technology in the last 10 years—and why?
• If you had unlimited resources to fund a research project or innovation, what would it be — and why?

Out of all the essays that we have received, Taylor’s was the most thorough and innovative.

He tackled the last question about unlimited funding and explained how he would use the resources to “create a longitudinal project looking at early life brain development.” This project would benefit five randomly selected infants born each day in an urban hospital (where he hopes to one day work) over a one-year period. (In case you were wondering, that would be 1,825 infants!)

Along with covering the costs to regularly produce magnetic resonance images (MRI) from birth through age 25, Taylor’s project would also fund additional examinations, assessments, analysis and research.

Taylor believes the project would have many advantages—including early detection and treatment for neurological diseases, as well as the potential to “revolutionize not only the field of psychology, but the field of medicine itself.”

Expecting to graduate this year with a degree in psychology and a minor in neuroscience, Taylor said he has ambitions to take a job in medical research at an urban university while applying to postgraduate medical schools.

Ultimately, he hopes to pursue a career in pediatric neurology and to travel to underdeveloped nations on medical missions with organizations like Partners for World Health or Doctors Without Borders.

With this being the first year for awarding this STEM scholarship, we truly could not have selected a more deserving recipient than Taylor. He clearly put a lot of thoughts into this project, and he is definitely a compassionate and ambitious young man with a bright future.

Technology is advancing rapidly, and students like Taylor (and the other applicants) will be at the forefront of these changes. For those reasons and many more, we were very happy with the outcome of our new STEM scholarship program, and we look forward to doing it again in 2019!