Athlone student Shauna awarded €24,000 scholarship

Former Athlone Community College student Shauna Loftus has been awarded a Naughton Foundation Scholarship worth €24,000 at a ceremony in Trinity Business School in Dublin.

The award was presented by founding patrons of the Naughton Foundation, Dr Martin Naughton and his wife Carmel, who were joined by former Taoiseach Enda Kenny to present winning students with their awards and cheques.

Shauna, the Westmeath winner of the scholarship, has accepted a place studying Science at University College Dublin.

Her former secondary school, Athlone Community College, was also awarded a prize of €1,000 towards its science facilities, for its support of a winning student.

Since the establishment of the the Naughton Foundation Scholarship Awards in 2008, scholarships worth over €6 million have been awarded to more than 350 students.

The scheme started in three counties and has continued to expand annually to become a nationwide scheme in 2016.

There is one guaranteed scholarship (€24,000) for each participating county, with some counties awarded more than one scholarship and each scholarship is worth €6,000 per annum for each year of a student’s three- or four-year undergraduate degree.

Shauna joins 37 exceptional Irish students who were awarded third level scholarships towards their studies in the areas of engineering, science, technology, and maths.

More than 250 schools have also benefited from this prize to date with some schools receiving it on more than one occasion.

Speaking about the growth and development of the programme over the past fourteen years, Dr Martin Naughton said: "We are delighted to have been able to help and contribute in some small way to support undergraduate studies in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) fields in Ireland since 2008.

"We are very conscious of the pressures on students to finance their full-time studies, and the increased costs they face, and are therefore increasing our annual Scholarship awards to €6,000 per annum for all of our new and existing Naughton Scholars - €24,000 for their four-year degree.

"When we meet these young engineers, researchers, and mathematicians I am very happy knowing that we have invested in Ireland’s wealth creators and leaders of the future."

More details about The Naughton Foundation Scholarships are available at: www.thenaughtonfoundation.ie