WE WOULD LIKE TO CONGRATULATE DANICA PURTELL THE WINNER OF THE 2025 MCMILLEN, URICK, TOCCI, JONES SCHOLARSHIP

Danica is a recent graduate of Beaver Area High School, where she holds a cumulative GPA of 4.403 and ranks 2nd in her class of 163. She is the founder and president of the Chemistry Club and serves as President of the National Honor Society. Danica is a captain of the Cross-Country team and a finalist in the Mid-Western Athletic Conference Championships, placing in the top 15 for all four of her high school years. Her extracurricular involvement includes providing academic support for her peers, mentoring a young student through The Center in Midland, and volunteering at the Beaver County Humane Society.

She has also participated in medical missionary work in the Dominican Republic, where she assists in triage care by taking vitals, charting children’s growth, retrieving medications, and caring for patients in the waiting area. Danica attended the fully funded Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Sciences, where she published original research on the accuracy of vitamin supplement labeling and completed college-level coursework in subjects such as Organic Chemistry, Modern Physics, Discrete Mathematics, Computer Science, and Molecular Biology. Additionally, she is a graduate of the LAUNCH Leadership in STEM program for girls, where she created and distributed a bilingual children’s book about dental hygiene to under-resourced communities in the Dominican Republic.

This past February, Danica was also honored to be selected as a Junior Achievement of Western Pennsylvania 18 under 18 Honoree, through which she completed the Intro to VP program with White House Speaker Beneca Ward. In her free time, Danica enjoys running, baking chemistry-themed treats, and self-studying the Czech language. In the fall, she will attend the University of Pittsburgh’s Frederick Honors College on the Pre-Med track, where she plans to double major in Psychology and Biochemistry.

Congratulations, Danica!

Thank you to all our scholarship applicants — we appreciate your submissions and wish you the very best in your future endeavors!