Southern California Student Wins NASA Scholarship

Friday, 16 August 2024

Southern California Student Wins NASA Scholarship

A man presents an award to a woman. Her family is also pictured.

Brad Flick, center director at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, presents a 2024 NASA College Scholarship Award to Sabrina Redifer. From left to right are Sabrina Redifer’s parents Matthew and Saynne Redifer, Flick, Sabrina Redifer, and her sister Samantha Redifer.

NASA/Steve Freeman

Sabrina Redifer, a 2024 graduate of Quartz Hill High School in Lancaster, California, won a NASA College Scholarship Award.

Redifer plans to major this fall in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She earned a 4.0 grade-point average – a weighted GPA of 5.29 – and ranked fourth academically out of a class of 794 students.

“My dream of becoming a physician stems from a love of science, innovation, and equality,” she said. “I want to develop new treatments through molecular and cellular research, and I want to make those treatments accessible to all people, regardless of their economic status or where they live.”

Redifer won the scholarship following an agency-wide application for NASA employee dependents planning to pursue a science, technology, engineering, or math degree. The scholarship is $2,000 per year for up to four years.

She is the daughter of Matthew Redifer, who is X-59 aircraft flight systems lead at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, and Saynne Redifer, of Palmdale, California.

“I didn’t think I was going to win,” Sabrina Redifer said. “I was super excited when I did!”

Sabrina Redifer is a valedictorian, received a 2023 and a 2024 Advanced Placement Scholar Award with Distinction, and the Advanced Placement Capstone Diploma, a special two-year course conducted in tandem with Advanced Placement classes.

Redifer was president of Quartz Hill High School’s National Honor Society, the varsity girls golf team president, and co-president of the Asian Student Union. She qualified for California Interscholastic Federation golf tournaments multiple times and ranked top six in the Golden League all four years.

In her community, she volunteered for two years at the Antelope Valley Medical Center in the gift shop and emergency room and at the Quartz Hill Food Pantry, where she helped pack food

for distribution. In addition, she shadowed physicians this summer, following and observing as they met with patients.

For more about NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong

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For more information, contact:

Jay Levine
NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center
(661) 276-3459
jay.levine-1@nasa.gov