Now in its fourth year, the Osborn Consulting Scholarship continues to support ambitious BIPOC students with demonstrated financial need. We have two winners for 2024, each studying landscape architecture.
We founded our scholarship specifically for students who are or will be pursuing a bachelor’s or master’s degree at accredited programs in landscape architecture or civil engineering. In partnership with the Renton Regional Community Foundation, we focus on identifying students with a commitment to developing public infrastructure and/or public spaces in the state of Washington.
Our winners for this year are Brian Chen and Lara Estaris.
Brian, who graduated from Bellevue’s Interlake Senior High School in 2020, is in his fourth year of a five-year architecture program at the University of Southern California with an emphasis on landscape architecture. He hopes that this scholarship will help alleviate some of the stress that comes with the cost of tuition, software subscriptions, and materials for making models.
In the essay he submitted to apply for the scholarship, Brian wrote that he believes “through design the quality of our lives can improve, even if just by a little bit. … Walking down a street, going to the store, driving on the freeway — no matter where we go, we interact with architecture and space simply through sight and proximity alone.”
Lara works as a project coordinator for Osborn in our Spokane office. She is pursuing a degree in urban planning with an emphasis on landscape architecture from Eastern Washington University. This is the first scholarship she’s received, and she trusts it will make a meaningful difference in her education goals.
“My approach to all work is immensely people-centered and guided by fairness and justice,” she wrote in her essay. “Building trust and fostering meaningful engagement with communities is essential for successful urban planning initiatives. Having been both a volunteer and working professional in the non-profit sector in Spokane, I understand the importance of and have cultivated the necessary skills to build relationships and trust with community members and organizations.”
Congratulations to Brian and Lara on earning our 2024 Osborn Scholarship. We’re eager to see them complete their degrees and make an even bigger difference in their communities.
