Schulich Leader Scholarship winners focus on driving innovation and creating change

The University of Calgary is pleased to introduce the 2024 Schulich Leaders who are joining our campus community this fall. We’re excited to have these six outstanding students join us in engineering and science. Congratulations to Rumeza Fatima, Abigail Kyliuk, Zalia Lee, Olivia McAuley, Zachary Morden and Timothy Sears. 

Created in 2012 by Canadian businessman and philanthropist Seymour Schulich, the Schulich Leader Scholarship encourages promising high school graduates to embrace STEM in their future careers. One hundred students in 20 partner universities across Canada receive the scholarship every year. These undergraduate scholarships of $120,000 or $100,000 each encourage high-achieving students to pursue a future in STEM.

Rumeza Fatima

Rumeza Fatima will pursue a combined bachelor's degree in computer science and data science. 

Since Grade 10, Fatima has gained experience through internships in both the local and global startup scenes. During this time, she developed several apps, including one designed to help people with eating disorders and another that allocates excess charitable garments to local charities. She also represented underserved communities in the tech sector through her roles as ambassador for Technovation and Hackergal. 

Fatima aspires to leverage her passion for technology to propel empathy-driven innovation and lead the development of life-changing software solutions.

Abigail Kyliuk

Abigail Kyliuk will pursue an engineering degree.

Kyliuk was president of Saskatchewan Rivers Students for Change, serving as voice of students in her school division of 8,500-plus students. Kyliuk’s skills and interests range from sport to the arts. She is an accomplished piano player who started her own business teaching piano lessons. She had a creative writing piece selected for publication, and she competes at provincial and national levels in sport.

Kyliuk hopes to one day open a business that affects positive change in the world.

Zalia Lee

Zalia Lee will pursue engineering.

In addition to her strong academics in high school, Lee co‐founded and runs Trendai, a company that offers custom school merchandise and athletic wear. She participated in a wide range of athletic sports including softball and swimming. She’s the captain of her high school’s basketball and volleyball teams and she coaches the school’s junior girls’ basketball team, and volunteers with the Special Olympics swim program.

In the future, Lee would like to work toward a PhD in engineering and dreams of starting her own sports equipment company.

Olivia McAuley

Olivia McAuley will study physics.

As someone who lives with Type 1 diabetes, McAuley recognized the positive impact research and science can have on people’s lives. She has set a goal to have that same impact through her own contributions.

She has already shown she can impact the world. She fundraised approximately $3,000 for diabetes research, and because of these efforts, was selected for the Government of Alberta Great Kids Award in 2018. In sport, she competed nationally for the Women’s Beach Handball team and at her school, she was named athlete of the year three times.

McAuley wants to pursue the study of physics to the fullest.

Zachary Morden

Zachary Morden will study computer science.

Before completing high school, Morden developed three unique mobile applications. He applied his knowledge of racket sports to create one app that notates results for its users across multiple racket sports. The inspiration for this app came from his love of the sport of squash in which he also competes locally, provincially and nationally.

Morden sees his future in tech entrepreneurism.

Timothy Sears

Timothy Sears will join the geomatics program.

Sears was deeply involved in his school community. He represented his school provincially on their Reach for the Top quiz team, and he was a finalist at the 2024 Canada-Wide Science Fair. His interests have led him to participate in robotic Lego competitions, and he developed and deployed a webmap using GIS to track his location in real time and share hiking routes online.

In the future, he would like to develop new or improved technologies that solve practical and challenging geomatics problems, ideally within his own startup.