2025 Scholarship Recipients

Ashen Blumberg is a BFA Animation student at the School of Visual Arts in New York, originally from San Francisco. Their love of storytelling began in childhood, watching cartoons in their father’s DVD collection and finding, in characters who embraced their differences, a sense of solace and belonging. Learning that these stories were made by real people who’d faced their own struggles, including creator Craig McCracken, showed Ashen that art could be both a healing outlet and a way to reach others going through similar experiences. That realization has shaped their creative path ever since, from writing and directing an original play in high school to completing an animated short film, “Magic Eraser,” selected as a finalist for the Coastline Children’s Film Festival. Ashen’s long-term goal is to pitch and direct an original animated television series, bringing diverse characters and stories into the mainstream so other kids can see themselves reflected on screen the way Ashen once did.

Samiyah Edwards is a graphic design student at California College of the Arts. Originally from Southern California, she has called the state home since elementary school and expanded that sense of home when she moved to San Francisco for college. Samiyah entered CCA unsure whether to pursue graphic design or illustration, but a course with Professor Sara Raffo, exploring spaces across San Francisco like SF Center of the Book, Letterform Archive, and SFMOMA, and featuring talks with working designers, showed her the full breadth of the field and confirmed graphic design was where she belonged. She’s since embraced the field’s inevitable creative setbacks, learning through a risograph printing project that art is fundamentally about problem-solving and adaptability. Being recognized for her original work would be deeply meaningful to Samiyah, offering both creative motivation and reassurance that a career in art is possible.

Joey is a graphic design student in San Francisco, and a first-generation student from San Francisco. Her love of art began in childhood with drawing and painting, inspired by her grandmother, who dreamed of becoming an artist and dancer but never had that opportunity. Joey built on that foundation through face painting at community street fairs and illustrating for her high school’s publication, developing a strong eye for color along the way. Her dream is to become a creative director, helping individuals and brands come to life visually through logos, typography, and packaging. She’s drawn to the full process of building something from scratch into a complete, personal identity, finding the same hands-on satisfaction in design work that she finds in creative projects like making tapioca pearls from scratch.

M is a graphic design student pursuing her BFA at San Jose State University. Born in the Philippines, she immigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area as a young child. Her interest in design grew naturally out of a lifelong love of art, from collecting posters and album covers to admiring the details of everyday objects. M considers adaptability her greatest strength, having built skills across illustration, motion design, photography, and fashion styling that let her approach creative work from every angle. As a designer with intersectional identities, she hopes to use her work to uplift marginalized communities and give voice to the people and cultures that shaped her. She’s worked steadily through school to pursue this path, balancing part-time work with her studies along the way.

Michael Phuong is an industrial design student at San Jose State University and a proud Vietnamese Asian-American who grew up in East San Jose and completed high school at Independence High School. Music was Michael’s first love. He pursued piano seriously until developing hyperacusis, a rare hearing condition that makes everyday sounds physically painful. That loss led him to discover industrial design, a field he’s found can offer a similarly quiet, meaningful way to ease people’s lives. Michael credits mindfulness as his greatest strength, which he says keeps him present and creatively resilient rather than fixated on outcomes. His dream is to one day collaborate with medical experts to design a device that helps others living with hyperacusis, turning his own experience into something that can help others.

Henry Raglin is an architecture student at Cooper Union, raised in San Francisco with deep roots in the city’s Mission District and North Beach neighborhoods. His interest in architecture and design began in childhood, tagging along to his father’s work meetings as a construction manager for restaurants and, at age eight, joining him on a trip to Spain that turned into an architectural history tour, from the Alhambra in Granada to centuries-old alleyways. That early spark grew as Henry began sketching tiny house floorplans, inspired by HGTV shows he watched with his mother, and it fully caught fire once he enrolled in the Architecture and Design department at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, where professional guidance helped turn his childhood sketches into real design skills. For Henry, architecture is more than a career path: it’s the pursuit that makes him feel fully engaged, and he’s driven by the satisfaction of using his full capabilities in service of a lasting sense of accomplishment.