These are past recipients of OrigamiUSA's Scholarship Program from 2017–2023. Know a young, deserving folder? Check out the program and make a nomination!
2023 Recipients
- Roshni Dave, from California
- William Braskamp, from Texax
- Leon Le, from California
- Allison Wang, from Massachusetts
Roshni Dave, age 17, from California, has been doing origami since she was a young child when her mother brought home origami books from the library, including the works of John Montroll and Tomoko Fuse. Using just copy paper Roshni and her brother explored the intricacies of each design and challenged themselves to master every model from the simplest to the most advanced. Through the magic of origami, she learned that, as she says, “Even the most humble of materials can be transformed into something beautiful and extraordinary.” Origami instilled in her a sense of ingenuity and perseverance to hone her skills and develop her own tessellations, fractals, and figures. Origami has led her to other pursuits, such as playing music, and even to her desired career path as a data scientist as she found that she enjoyed interpreting complex origami diagrams and identifying patterns in the folding process. Through origami she has become a part of a welcoming and diverse group of artists of all levels who come together to share their passion for the art of paper folding. She says, “I love being involved with the worldwide exploration to push the boundaries of what's possible with paper. She started the origami club at her school, and every semester they fold a collaborative project that is both artistic and community oriented. For instance, in 2020, they made a 1000crane mural with letters "BLM" to bring social justice awareness to our community, and in 2023 they made a modular phoenix, folded in small teams, to symbolize community's strength after the California wildfires. She also hosts origami workshops at local events to highlight awareness of STEM possibilities.
William Braskamp, age 13, from Texas, has his first encounter with origami when his mom gave him an origami kit for his 7th birthday. William immediately began folding. One summer afternoon he and a friend folded 100 water-bombs. From there he was motivated to learn more complex origami via YouTube videos. He has been folding ever since. When he was 8, William began volunteering for Paper for Water (paperforwater.org), a non-profit group that raises money through origami to solve the world water crisis. He also began folding with ADROIT, the local COG, led by Travis Nolan (himself a previous OrigamiUSA scholarship awardee). Deb Adams (Board of Directors, PFW) said, “I knew immediately that William was wise beyond his years and very passionate about two things: origami and helping other people. William says that "Origami is important to my life because it gives me something fun to do after school, it helps me calm down after a long day, and I have new friends because of origami.” However, he says that the most important way origami has impacted his life is that it introduced him to Paper for Water. From the start, William was such an enthusiastic and prolific volunteer that they had had to confirm with his mom that he was still getting his schoolwork done! In 2020, William was the Paper for Water Youth Volunteer of the Year Awardee for his many volunteer hours and dedication, both to fundraising through folding and to widening the circle of volunteers through teaching. In addition to his rich origami life, William is a member of the water polo and school swim teams, MathCounts and Math Club. He loves making and fixing all things, especially anything that needs a 3D-printed part.
Leon Le, age 14, from California, said that origami was always been a part of his life, but in 2020 when so many people were isolated at home during the pandemic, he thought, “Some other kids must be bored at home too, like me. Why don't we come together to make origami for fun?” So, he developed and hosted weekly online origami classes for months through Silicon Valley Community United (SVCU), a non-profit organization. Before long everyone became enamored with both the folding and the social time. Unfortunately, COVID continued into summer 2021.Based on the interest generated during the school year, Leon challenged himself to design and host a free two-week virtual origami summer camp. Leon kept going and created a one-year self-learning origami program for the non-profit, Future Bridge Organization. He published the tutorial videos online to allow more independent, self-paced origami learning. For this work, including over 100 volunteer hours, Leon was the Future Bridge President’s Volunteer Service Gold Awardee, but his greatest satisfaction came from the joy that his videos brought to young people. Last year, Leon and his friends were discussing artificial intelligence which led them to commit to calling each other every week to discuss their idea of creating an AI bootcamp event that taught the basics of artificial intelligence to students from low-income backgrounds. Leon’s section focused on the applications of origami and artificial intelligence. At the end of the session one of the students told Leon that she had an eye-opening experience that day, and she has become interested in learning more about computer science for her future career. It was inspiring to widen students’ horizons. In addition to his volunteer work, Leon folds a wide array of origami models, and he has many interests outside of origami. He is a competitive nationally ranked debater and was a semi-finalist in the California Berkeley Invitational.
Allison Wang, age 16, from Massachusetts, first encountered origami when she found her mother sitting on the floor next to a big plastic box. The box was filled with water, and there were many little origami boats floating at the top. She didn’t know why her mother was doing this, but she remembers being very curious. Allison’s father noticed she was interested in what her mother was doing. Together Allison and her father began to look for YouTube videos to learn origami, and she hasn’t stopped doing origami since. When she was in elementary school, she taught her classmates origami models like little butterflies, cats, etc. Now origami connects Allison to her memories of her father as well as being part of his legacy. She says, “My dad is the reason I have loved origami for my entire life. He always supported my interest in origami from a very early age.” When they moved to Massachusetts in 2014, her father wanted her to find mentors who loved origami just as much as she did which led them to discover the Massachusetts Institute of Technology origami group, OrigaMIT. Even in the dead of winter, her father would walk with her through blizzards to get to the club meetings. Allison’s father bought her books and constantly challenged her with new models. Sadly, her father passed away from cancer last year. After he passed, Allison started making origami earrings and art with a friend to raise money for cancer research. She also taught a class for children with cancer at the Ronald McDonald House in Boston. Allison has also taught classes at a multiple OrigaMIT conventions.
2021 (Online), 2022 (In-Person) Recipients
- Dylan Grover, from Idaho
- Brandon Wong, from California
- Kevin Wong, from California
- Neha Srinivasa, from Georgia
- Cristian Burke-Joseph, from New York
Dylan Grover, age 17, from Idaho, become known in his community as the “King of Origami,” teaching himself by gleaning any information he can from books, the internet, and asking around to find other enthusiasts of the art. He began folding at age 5 with John Montroll’s Easy Origami and then his love origami grew alongside his exposure to Robert Lang’s work. He loves sharing origami with people everywhere, with his work being seen in businesses around his town and through the many classes he teaches at the public library, local high schools, and his church. He also plays trombone and sings in choir and participates in track and cross-country among many other interests and hobbies.
Brandon Wong, age 17, from California, began folding after a trip to Hong Kong at age 4, along with his older brother and has never stopped. He shares origami with a focus on designing and origami theory on his successful YouTube channel and is one of the founders of the Origami-Dan Discord server. He teaches origami through many platforms online and to individuals in other countries and in multiple languages. His focus is on designing models with unexplored techniques especially those with tilted grid crease patterns and enjoys box-pleated humanoid models because of their depth of details that require more care than any animal designs. He is currently a senior in high school and also enjoys speed cubing and learning languages and is preparing to study engineering in fall of 2021.
Kevin Wong, age 14, from California, was first exposed to origami in 2nd grade by his teach who would give them origami boxes as rewards in class. He began folding regularly in 6th grade after helping a classmate asked for help with an origami deer. That was the gateway to exploring the many books available in his classroom as he fell in love with complex money folds. He continues to fold a variety of different model types and designs his own models. He teaches at his local boy scout troop, public library, and on YouTube. His models have been displayed in local exhibition and Origami by Children. He is currently working on a project to create a school-based lesson series for teachers to use with 6th grade students to promote their problem-solving skills and patience. In the future, he would like to continue exploring how to understand and teach important concepts through origami. In addition to origami, Kevin enjoys swimming, playing Baroque violin, and Boy Scouts, and will begin 10th grade in the fall.
Neha Srinivasa, age 15, from Georgia, has been folding for five years, and other than the 2019 convention in New York, had never met folders from around the world or immersed in collaborative activities. She began folding in middle school with paper airplanes, which lead to an online discovery of origami on YouTube. Neha has started an origami club at her school and traches origami to young kids at week-long camps though the Shooting Stars foundation. He favorite types of origami are modulars, complex animals, and tessellations with a specific focus on those with intriguing geometric and color patterns. She looks forward to experiencing a very diverse environment, out-of-state, where professionals and aspiring folders can meet at PCOC, which she hopes will prove to be one of the most memorable moments in her origami journey. In addition to origami, Neha plays piano and participates in the sport of fencing.
Christian Burke-Joseph, age 17, from New York, has a wide-ranging experience with origami, and began folding when he was an elementary school student. He has folded large-scale models for display at his school and has given lessons to more than 40 members of his school staff at a Teach the Teachers event. He teaches origami in schools, community programs, and various museums and always carries a pack of paper with him ready to share with anyone he meets. He enjoys folding insects, dragons, and all mythical characters. Outside of origami, Christian studies in the high school-undergraduate dual degree program with Bard College of Annandale, New York and seeks to pursue a degree in aerospace engineering. He loves composing and performing jazz music and plays trumpet in multiple major university programs. Additionally, he is learning five foreign languages, plays tennis, and enjoys travelling.
2020 Recipients
- Adèle, from England
- Jessica, from the United States
- Tej, from India
Adèle, 6 years old in 2020, shares her love of origami with everyone she meets. Already she is a special person who can teach anyone from children to adults. She has been doing origami since she was only a little over 2 years old, and has been practicing origami every single day since then. When learning a new model, she spends months practicing to make it as neat and accurate as possible. Her very first model was a tulip and it took her 10 months to learn to fold it. When she was 4, she spent hours practicing making an origami star. Doing origami daily has greatly given back to her, serving to improve spatial-visual skills. Adèle loves animals, live and folded! She likes experimenting with hand-colored papers and using origami in other creative ways such as making origami jewelry, origami postcards, or origami ornaments. Recently Adèle was invited to participate in two Christmas markets where she sold her origami creations and raised money for her school. She taught origami to children every Friday for their after school club and on Zoom to families from around the world during the 2020 lockdown. At one point she and her family were living in a village in Italy. She taught many children in that village how to fold even though she didn’t speak their language.
Jessica, 17 years old in 2020, attributes to origami her awareness of how crucial it is to engage and learn with others. At age 17 she is co-president of the Art Club at her high school. She has many creative outlets, but what separates origami from other art forms is its ability to bring people of all ages and abilities together. With origami, it is necessary to engage with others to learn and improve. Jessica is committed to learning about the state of our planet and to have some impact on global warming, so she was excited to learn about the organization Paper for Water, which is dedicated to building water wells in countries lacking clean water. A major way to thank donors is to send origami models, and for that they encourage people outside of the organization to send in modules to assemble into “thank you origami.” Jessica was excited that she could meld two important interests: origami and the environment. Realizing that she could support Paper for Water by holding a workshop to teach art students how to fold a sonobe unit. She lovingly packaged the modules and shipped them to be opened, assembled, and given as gifts to those who support clean water. Since then she has taught many models to friends and classmates. She especially enjoys Ekaterina Lukusheva’s intricate and beautiful kusudamas. Through these models Jessica become aware of the connection between mathematics and origami/art. Jessica has a long list of science areas that she might want to study --- she always wants to stretch her abilities and challenge herself.
Tej, 15 years old in 2020, was only 7 years old when he was first introduced to origami by his mom. By the time he was 9 years old he was already really “into folding” and origami has continued to play a central role in his life ever since. One of the first models with which he was fascinated was the Magic Ball designed by Yuri Shumakov. It took focus and persistence --- and some help from newly found origami mentors at a Japan Festival near his home --- before he mastered it. From there his origami world expanded quickly. He meets with Origami Mitra (a group of folders in Mumbai and Pune in India), participated in a Guinness Book of World Records event to fold the world’s biggest butterfly (they did it!), and began teaching origami at many different schools and colleges. He says that, “teaching origami gave me a different sort of fulfillment and positive energy, which motivated me to do more and more origami.” He is active in many projects that bring origami to rural and tribal schools in India, and others such as Origami for Peace, whose mission is to promote peace through thousand crane projects and Senbazuru. Recently Tej was nominated to attend an origami architecture workshop, where he had the opportunity to explore origami with many new materials and techniques. He has a broad interest in the many ways origami can come into play --- robotics, fabricating, designing, just to name a few --- and he is always searching for people who can help him or collaborate with him. He likes to explore the mathematical side of origami, and he is planning to do research on rigid foldability.
PCOC 2019
- Brendan Perez (17 year old 11th grader from Washington)
- Melina Sarion (13 year old 8th grader from New Jersey)
Brendan’s mom borrowed an easy kid origami book from the library when he was 4. After making everything in that book, they went to a used book store where he saw the book "Origami Bugs and Beasts" by Manuel Alvarez. His mom did buy the book for him despite warning him that it was going to be too hard. At first he cried inconsolably because he couldn't fold any of the designs, and it was way too advanced for his parents to help. By the age of 6, he had taught himself how to fold the creatures in that book and has been folding ever since. It is no surprise, then, that Brendan also loves mathematics and puzzles. In the past three years he has designed numerous mechanical wooden puzzles. Origami has greatly influenced his love of mathematics. He can see endless applications of the mathematics of origami and hopes to do research and have a career in this area.
For Melina, one of the best parts of knowing how to make origami is being able to share and teach others. In her afterschool program in elementary school, she was making a lot of origami and would get many requests from classmates to make them something. She loved trading a piece of origami for a compliment or act of kindness. Eventually she couldn't keep up with the demand so she taught a number of her classmates how to make simple hearts and birds. In the summer before 5th grade she made and sold origami birds and hearts to her family and friends, and raised half of the funds for a summer STEM camp she really wanted to attend. In 7th grade, inspired by an online Post-it note project, she made about 150 origami hearts with special positive messages on them and surprised her 7th grade classmates with one on each of their lockers at the end of the school year. Melina has been doing Ninja Warrior training for 4 years. Recently she was on a junior version of the TV show American Ninja Warrior. She was chosen from over 6000 applicants to compete on a ninja warrior course in California in front of a live audience (to be televised).
OrigamiUSA Annual Convention 2019
- Divya Iyer (16 year old 10th grader from North Carolina)
- Sophie Usherwood (16 year old 10th grader from New Hampshire)
Early in her origami life, a friend gifted Divya a set of origami books by Meenakshi Mukerji, and her passion for modular origami was born. Since then, folding has become an integral part of her day. Ever since she started serious origami folding, she has been giving away models as gifts to friends and family. She has taught modular origami to teens at her local library and has displayed her models there for the past three years as part of the artists’ showcase. She will soon be featured there in an artist meet-and-greet and will spread the word about origami. She also enjoys teaching origami at a Senior Center. Divya is fascinated by the various science applications of Origami and will do a research internship on the applications of self-folding polymer sheets at North Carolina State University this summer.
Origami also brings Sophie wonderful opportunities to meet people of all ages who think similarly, but who come from very different backgrounds. Sophie leads monthly origami workshops at her local library, classes at a senior living facility, and weekly origami club sessions at her high school. In spring, normal classes at her school are suspended for a week during “March Intensive,” and students can focus on one non-academic course taught by a teacher or community member. This year, Sophie’s course plan for origami won the March Intensive Competition. She received funding for her course from her school and from The New Hampshire Association of Science. For the past 2 years Sophie has combined her interests in origami, math, and creativity by working with an engineering research group lead by Professor Zi Chen at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. One focus of his group’s work is origami-inspired engineering. She helps design, test, and analyze various structures that are useful for engineering. She documents her progress on her blog, “The Origami Journals,” which can be found at .
OrigamiUSA Annual Convention 2018
- Travis Nolan (16 years old) from Richardson, Texas
- Kelly Tan (16 years old) from Los Altos, California
In 2017, Kelly hosted an origami demonstration at Los Altos History Museum on the opening weekend of the exhibition 'I want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story'. She taught groups of children and adults how to fold origami and displayed various models around the museum. Kelly is interested in the interface among origami, math, and science. She is actively pursuing connections in medicine and was invited to attend a program at Johns Hopkins University this summer.
The diagrams for one of Travis’s original models, an oncavenator (dinosaur) were published in the 2017 East Bay Origami Convention book, and an image of the model was printed in Prehistoric Times, a paleontology magazine. He will be displaying several models at the Whiteside Museum of Natural History in Seymour, TX, this June for a prehistoric origami display. He has won numerous prizes for his models, and founded a Community Origami Group, ADROIT (Artists Doing Remarkable Origami in Texas). He is an excellent ambassador of origami with infectious enthusiasm.
Both Kelly and Travis were amazed at how many people share their interest and it fired them up to go home and be ambassadors for origami.
Pacific Coast OrigamiUSA Convention 2017
- Alex Matthews (15 years old) from Crossville, Tennessee
- Harry Allen (11 years old) from Seattle, Washington
Alex and Harry were prolific folders and creators before coming to PCOC 2017 in Los Angeles. Harry has his own YouTube channel and Alex has a self-published book and runs a popular local convention. They were both extremely excited and appreciative to have the opportunity to go to a convention and meet some of their origami idols, like Robert J. Lang. They attended classes, met new friends and went home even more excited about origami.