2025 Scholarship Update!
Thank you so much to all of our incredible applicants! The National Storm Chaser Summit received 11 entries for consideration by our scholarship committee. The caliber of students was phenomenal! The Board of Directors voted to award multiple scholarships this year! Winners will be awarded at NSCS25!
"In 2019, James Menzies and I started the NSCS to help give back to the weather community and to help educate and train in a passion we both have molded our lives around. We’ve grown our team of volunteers, whom work countless hours, to make days like today all worth it!!
Thanks to generous donations and the successful 2024 NSCS, 3 wonderful students in STEM have been awarded $1,200 each! Again congratulations to
Tessa Mitchell, Robin Kirchner and Brayden Jones.
Continue to chase your dreams, and those who did not win, please never give up!! It was extremely competitive!!
-Erik Fox
President/Founder"
​
​
The Paul Samaras
Scholarship
About The Scholarship
One of the foundational and guiding principles for the National Storm Chaser Summit Board of Directors is to provide educational resources for current and future storm chasers exercising proper forecasting, safety, and media etiquette.
The Summit provides social and networking opportunities to storm chase community in honour of the late Tim Samaras who always welcomed fellow chasers and weather enthusiasts to share his passion for stormy skies.
In order to provide further educational opportunities to current and potential future chasers, the NSCS has created a scholarship fund to be awarded, annually, to an outstanding undergraduate student seeking a major course of study within the S.T.E.M. or Photography/Videography disciplines. Our goal for 2025 is to award multiple scholarship opportunities for students.
The NSCS scholarship fund is named in honor of Paul T. Samaras to provide a tribute and to salute his legacy of outstanding photography, videography, and production talents which were suddenly, and tragically, cut short on May 31, 2013 in El Reno, Oklahoma.
The late Paul T. Samaras, a gifted photographer with a passion for nature, weather, Star Wars and adventure!
Application Details
2024 Paul Samaras Scholarship Application
This is the application for the 2024 Paul Samaras Scholarship. Entry requirements are as follows:
Read and follow the instructions carefully prior to submitting your application. The recipient will be
notified around December 2024 and announced at the 2025 NSCS. When the application asks your level of education, please indicate the level you will be in for the Fall 2024 semester.
Please write an essay (500 words or more) explaining your need for this scholarship and detailing your
future goals and aspirations. To be an applicant you must be going into your Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, or Senior year for undergraduate starting in Fall 2024. You must be attending a college with an accredited 4-year STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) or film/photography program. You are encouraged to reapply if you have applied in previous years.
Additionally, if you have any letters of recommendation, please attach those to your email containing your
essay or via the file uploader below (preferred). Letters of recommendation will not be accepted after the deadline below.
The deadline to apply is October 1st, 2024 at 5PM Central Time.
IF YOU DO NOT USE THE FILE UPLOADER, PLEASE EMAIL YOUR ESSAY AND LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION TO STORMCHASERSUMMIT@YAHOO.COM WITHIN 1 HOUR OF SUBMITTING YOUR APPLICATION. IF YOU EMAIL THE FILES, MAKE THE SUBJECT LINE READ "(YOUR LAST NAME) - ESSAY". FAILURE TO ADHERE TO THESE GUIDELINES WILL RESULT IN YOUR APPLICATION NOT BEING CONSIDERED.
The scholarship amount is determined by donations and revenue from our summits. Any questions can be sent to stormchasersummit@yahoo.com.
Scholarship
Recipients
2023 - Gabe Cenker
​
​​Gabe is from Rockledge, Florida. Ever since he was young, he's been fascinated with meteorology, especially with watching and tracking hurricanes approaching his state. When he was deciding where to go for his undergraduate degree it was clear he wanted to go to OU after seeing the Weather Center. Gabe is currently a senior working on his meteorology degree along with an electrical & computer engineering minor. With that combination he hopes he can work on improving whether radar products and hardware development. Gabe had the opportunity to work on several research projects with CIWRO and the MAP lab and was listed as a coauthor with Dr. Dzambo. He's currently working with Dr. Schvartzman on a project to train an AI program to estimate specific differential phase from radar data. Gabe is a member of the Oklahoma Weather Lab, Alpha Lambda Delta, and an electrical sub team co-captain on the Sooner River Team. This summer he was able to expand his horizons studying abroad at Oxford with the University of Oklahoma Honors College. ​​​​​​
​​
​​
2022 - Laci Graham
​
In 2022 Laci attends Ohio State University as a Freshman studying Meteorology and Civil Engineering. Her dream career has always been storm chasing and she is lucky enough to be getting to live it. After graduating from OSU, Laci wants to work in the National Weather Service and help create better weather models. She wants to use what she learns while storm chasing to create more affordable storm shelters and make sure there are safe places for all people for any disaster.
*Note- we automatically donate 18% of the general fund to the scholarship fund, or you can contribute directly to the scholarship fund to help us in our mission of supporting student's academic persuits in memory of Paul T. Samaras. Thank you!
