Nef Scholarship Awarded to Three Local High School Students
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STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. — Each year since 2000, the Erikson Institute of the Austen Riggs Center has awarded the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Scholarship to three graduating high school seniors who have been selected for their academic achievements, pursuit of study in the social sciences or pre-medicine and their leadership in the community.
The 2015 recipients, honored at a luncheon held at the Austen Riggs Center on Aug. 6, are:
* Katherine Donovan from Monument Mountain Regional High School. Katherine lives in Lee and will be attending the Commonwealth Honors College at UMass Amherst and majoring in chemistry.
* Rishabh Kedia from Lenox Memorial High School. Rishabh lives in Lenox and will be attending Boston College in the fall in the pre-med program.
* Samantha Reynolds from Lee high School. Samantha lives in Lee and will be attending UMass Amherst to study psychology.
These scholarships would not have been possible without Evelyn Stefansson Nef, an important member and benefactor of the extended Austen Riggs community. Her gifts to Riggs have underwritten the Friday Night Lecture series, created research opportunities for the center’s professional staff and funded outreach projects and scholarships. In 2003, Nef was the donor of the largest gift in the history of Riggs: a $3 million dollar bequest to endow the directorship of the Center’s Erikson Institute for Education and Research.
One of the winners of the very first scholarship in 2000 went on to become a research assistant here at Riggs after she graduated from college. Samantha Blache, who received the scholarship in 2008, started working at Riggs as a receptionist two years ago and is now the Erikson Institute Education Coordinator. Scholarship winners have also returned to Riggs as interns.
“With this scholarship, we remember a dear friend and benefactor of Riggs and, at the same time, celebrate the potential of three remarkable young students as they continue their academic pursuits,” said current director of the Erikson Institute Jane G. Tillman said.
Austen Riggs Center, a leading psychiatric hospital and residential treatment program, has been serving adults since 1919. Within a completely open setting, patients are provided immersion in an intensive treatment milieu that emphasizes respectful engagement. Individual, four times/weekly, psychodynamic psychotherapy is provided by doctors on staff.
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