Announcing the 2024 Winners of the Crowley-Nowick Award for iCons Student Leadership and Philanthropy

The Crowley-Nowick Award for iCons Student Leadership and Philanthropy was established through a gift from Dr. Peg Crowley-Nowick ’86, president of medical affairs consulting for Lumanity. Each year, the award is given to two iCons students who embody a strong sense of community in the iCons Program, with the goal of establishing the value among iCons students of giving back to iCons.

Shiven Patel is from Gujarat, India and is a rising junior on the iCons renewable energy track. Outside of iCons, he spends most of his time as a research assistant in the Dynamic and Autonomous Robotic Systems Lab (DARoS). Here, Shiven is part of a team working to build a guide dog robot for the visually impaired. He has also served as an undergraduate teaching assistant, a software engineer intern with UMass Information Technology, and the president of CICSoft, a Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences student organization working to bridge the gap between industry and college.

“I am truly grateful to be a Crowley-Nowick Scholarship recipient,” Shiven says, “I look forward to working closely with the iCons leadership team in building a sense of community.”

Claudia Figueroa-Pabón is from San Juan, Puerto Rico and is a rising senior on the biomedical/biosystems track in iCons. Claudia works as an Engineering Peer Mentor with the College of Engineering’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to support students and to improve the culture. “My goal is to make the college, classes, and overall environment of engineering accessible and welcoming to all!” Claudia is a 2024 Sloan Student Fellow who will be working with Dr. Stacyann Bailey from Biomedical Engineering on investigating the mechanisms of increased skeletal fragility caused by cancer and cancer-related treatment.

Both are grateful to have been recognized by their peers for this award and look forward to the opportunity to build on the community they have found within the program. Claudia states, “I'm very passionate about the iCons Program becoming a home, of sorts, for iCons students. A place where students can form connections and friendships that provide a sense of belonging at such a large university.”

About iCons
The UMass iCons Program is a unique undergraduate certificate program whose mission is to inspire a diverse generation of innovators in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business with the attitudes and skills needed to solve problems facing our world. Building on the disciplinary strength of each student’s major, iCons projects at all levels involve collaborative student teams working on cross-disciplinary communication and integrative problem-solving skills.