Zonta Young Women in Leadership Award

Amelia Earhart Fellowship

The deadline for submissions for the 2025 Award has passed.  The Amelia Earhart Fellowship was established in 1938 in honor of famed pilot and Zontian, Amelia Earhart. The US$10,000 Fellowship is awarded annually to up to 30 women pursuing Ph.D./doctoral degrees in aerospace engineering and space sciences. The 2026 Application will be posted at zonta.org/AEFellowship. 

Zonta Women in Business Leadership Award

Casey McDermott

The Zonta Club of Quaboag Valley is pleased to announce that Casey McDermott is the winner of the club's 2025 award for Women in Business Leadership, AND she was one of 10 exceptional applicants selected for a 2025 Zonta Women in Business Leadership International Award – The ZI recipients will receive a complimentary one-year supporting membership in Zonta International starting in the next fiscal year (1 June 2026) and US $10,000 award. 

Casey resides in Dartmouth. Nova Scotia. The Quaboag Club did not have a local applicant and accepted Casey's application, as there were no clubs in Nova Scotia offering the award. According to Scholarship Chair, Trish Pupek, “This young woman's essay was amazing and she scored 100% on the evaluation form.”

The Women in Business Leadership Award honors exceptional leadership, entrepreneurial spirit, ethical conduct and significant contributions while addressing global or local issues affecting women and girls or climate change. We believe Casey McDermott’s application exemplifies her commitment to these things and that she has and is taking action to build a better world for women and girls through service and advocacy. 

Casey McDermott, age 35, has been accepted into the Executive Masters Degree Program at the University of Oxford. Casey has a strong educational background with her major focus being political science, international relations, conflict studies and risk management. The employment and volunteer experiences she speaks to in her professional information and goals essay demonstrate initiative and taking action to address issues directly impacting women and girls at the local and international level. She is currently employed with the Canadian Red Cross and is a reservist in the Armed Forces and has achieved the rank of Lieutenant in the Navy. She has mentored women for over a decade in various associations and has volunteered as a unit leader and mentor for Girl Guides since 2020.

Her career aspiration  is to “leverage private business principals to build non-profit organizational structures that ethically contribute to gender equality and the betterment of our global society”.  She states the Zonta award would help fund her tuition at Oxford. Further that she “would be honored to be a Zonta ambassador to champion Zonta’s vision”.

Casey's essay:

With a track record of progressively responsible leadership experience in non-profits and the military, my commitment to gender equality internationally and locally has informed all aspects of my career and ambitions as a non-profit business leader.

After working predominantly in conflict-affected countries for Doctors Without Borders, the UN, and other international non-government organizations, I recognized the aid and development industry was falling short of its humanitarian mandate, with women and girls disproportionately affected. Motivated to address this issue, I transitioned to CARE headquarters in 2018 where I leveraged my extensive field experience, leadership position, and entrepreneurial spirit to support offices around the world in preparing for and responding to emergencies with a gender-informed lens. This included ensuring teams were training and deploying female leaders, had prepositioned gender-sensitive relief items (i.e. menstrual pads), and understood the specific needs of women and girls (i.e. building latrines with locks and lighting to improve safety and security).

In my subsequent role as Director of International Response at the Canadian Red Cross, I further scaled my experience, overseeing international aid efforts, including the management of the $20M government-funded Emergency Disaster Assistance Fund and the deployment of over 130,000 emergency relief items in response to COVID-19 and the Ukraine crisis. These efforts were directed to the most vulnerable individuals in each context, including women and girls.

Beyond my dedication to women and girls around the world, I have also focused locally, mentoring young women for over a decade through the McGill University Alumni Association and the Prosperity Project’s Rosie Initiative, as well as volunteering as a Girl Guides Leader. Furthermore, I became a reservist officer in the Armed Forces, a historically male institution, achieving my current rank of Lieutenant (Navy). Each of these endeavors allow me to support, learn from, and hold space for the next generation of women leaders.

Despite my commitment to advancing gender equality in all aspects of my personal and professional life, my efforts continue to be hampered by systems, policies, and procedures that disadvantage women and girls. Meanwhile, climate change, COVID-19, and shifting global politics threaten to erode progress made to date. While the world of business and private enterprise is taking advantage of innovation and technology, the non-profit industry is falling behind. My career aspiration is to leverage private business principals to build non-profit organizational structures that ethically contribute to gender equality and the betterment of our global society. To accomplish this, I accepted a position in corporate services at Canadian Red Cross in 2024 and have secured a spot in the University of Oxford’s executive MBA program, starting September 2025. I will work tirelessly to build a comprehensive business foundation and become an industry leader.

The Zonta Women in Business Leadership Award will help fund my tuition at the University of Oxford. I would be honored to be a Zonta ambassador and to champion Zonta’s vision: a world in which women's rights are recognized as human rights, and every woman is able to achieve her full potential.

Zonta Women in STEM Award

Verena Bellscheidt is a PhD candidate in physics at MIT, where she investigates foundational questions concerning the Big Bang, dark matter, and the fundamental laws of the universe, building upon theories first proposed by Stephen Hawking. A graduate with distinction from the Technical University of Munich, she brings valuable experience from previous research internships in particle physics and astrophysics. Aiming to become a professor of theoretical physics, Verena is dedicated to advancing the field at the intersection of cosmology and particle physics while mentoring the next generation of female scientists. Supported by the $2000 Zonta Women in STEM award from the Quaboag Club, she will advance her research through crucial international collaborations and conference presentations. Verena will compete with other candidates in Zonta District 1 to be eligible for one of 10 $10,000 Zonta International awards.  Notes Verena in her application, “I am proud to align with Zonta’s mission to foster gender equity and support women in male-dominated STEM fields.”