CREW Network Foundation Announces 2020 Scholarship Recipients

Chiamaka Anyoku
Hometown: Long Island, New York
Graduate | Harvard University
Focus of study: Economic Development

Anyoku is a joint MBA and MPP student at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. Her interest in economic development started as a young child in New York, where she observed how a lack of investment drove neighborhood-level disparities in economic and social outcomes. She has focused her career education on creating transformative cities.

On campus, Anyoku is an active member of Harvard Business School’s real estate club and served as a Co-Chair of Harvard’s 2020 Real Estate Conference. She previously worked with New York City Economic Development Corporation in their real estate transaction services team, supporting public-private partnerships and mission-driven real estate development. Prior to Harvard, she worked in management consulting and institutional investing. Anyoku holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in Economics and Latin American Studies from Brown University and served as one of the university’s new alumni trustees. She is current working as a Summer Associate on Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group.
 

Crischell Bacarro
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Graduate | Loyola Marymount University
Focus of study: Finance

Bacarro is a Senior Associate at Tishman International Companies, where she oversees operational strategy, project management and transactions coordination for the organization. Prior to joining Tishman, Crischell conducted research in the Philippines as a Fulbright Scholar. Bacarro received her bachelor’s degree from Loyola Marymount University, where she is currently pursuing an MBA with a concentration in Finance.

Crischell is eager to use the knowledge and the network that she continues to gain from her professional affiliations to lead investments that increase awareness and encourage cross-sector partnerships on pressing topics such as community development and workforce housing. She is confident that CREW Network will bring her closer to her goal.
 

Georgia Burkard
Hometown: White Plains, New York
Junior | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Focus of study: Business Administration and Sustainability

Burkard’s passion for real estate began immediately out of high school while working as a Construction Management Intern at Cumming Corporation in New York City. The following year, she was hired back to work with Cumming in Los Angeles at the Marriott EDITION hotel. After an internship with Investors Bank's Commercial Lending team in New York in 2019, she dedicated her studies at the Kenan-Flagler Business School to real estate.

In her sophomore year, Burkard was named a Real Estate Diversity Internship Scholar through UNC's Wood Center. Through this program, she is spending her 2020 summer at JLL. Currently, her interests lie in real estate finance and development, specifically through a sustainable lens. Always eager to learn and grow, she seeks out new challenges and opportunities to shape her passions and interests in global commercial real estate.
 

Olivia Celinski
Hometown: Naperville, Illinois
Senior | DePaul University
Focus of Study: Finance

Celinski is a year away from finishing her undergraduate degree in finance with a minor in accounting at DePaul University in Chicago. She is a member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society. Celinski is highly involved in multiple clubs at her school as well as volunteering in her community, specifically working with a Real Estate Broker.

Celinski has worked as an intern within financial reporting and accounting. She aspires to incorporate investment finance and commercial real estate in her future career. She also plans to become a mentor to assist college students with advice, networking opportunities and career enhancement events after gaining a few years of professional experience.
 

Emily Coleman
Hometown: Elkhorn, Nebraska
Senior | University of Nebraska Omaha
Focus of study: Real Estate and Land Use Economics, Legal Studies

Coleman is a senior at the University of Nebraska Omaha majoring in Business Administration with concentrations in Real Estate and Legal Studies. She is an active member of the Rho Epsilon Real Estate Fraternity, where she will serve as 2020-21 president. Outside of the classroom, Coleman interns at Union Pacific Railroad, where she works closely with property managers to maintain UP property and land-lease portfolios across the Western U.S.

Coleman’s interest in commercial real estate can be attributed to a social justice project she completed in high school regarding hidden homeless. It was through the presentation she was first exposed to America’s affordable housing crisis and realized that one day she wanted to play a role in its reversal. Upon graduation, Coleman plans to attend law school and eventually sees herself working closely with public housing authorities, assisting with the acquisition and financing of multifamily affordable housing units.
 

Aleithia de Guzman
Hometown: Lethbridge, Alberta
Graduate | Stanford University
Focus of study: Business

Guzman is attending her first year at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She is interested in studying technological disruption in real estate, specifically how emerging technologies can be leveraged to build sustainable cities that help tackle climate change. Guzman’s passion for sustainability began in college, when she led a team of 100 students to build a net-zero house for a competition held by the U.S. Department of Energy.

She has seven years of experience working in real estate PE for OMERS / Oxford Properties in London, leading and completing over $8 billion of transactions across Europe, Asia Pacific, and North America. She co-founded the 50/50 Dinner in London with a group of women to increase awareness of the gender split in real estate and has helped build social housing in the Philippines, where she was born. Guzman was named one of Bisnow’s ‘Top 49 Women’ who will shape the future of UK real estate.
 

Kristina Flathers
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Graduate | The University of Chicago
Focus of study: Business Administration

Flathers is an MBA candidate at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She credits her interest in commercial real estate to her family of real estate investors and personal real estate portfolio. She sees commercial real estate as a natural fit for her entrepreneurial and dynamic personality.

Her real estate professor at Chicago Booth has taught her the mantra of “think technically to think strategically.” Upon graduating from the program in June 2021, she plans to put these skills into practice in the areas of investment analysis and development. Flathers aims to build a portfolio of unique experiences and skills to expand her knowledge of the real estate industry and work side by side with unique and talented individuals from whom she can learn.
 

Johana Gonzalez
Hometown: Las Vegas, Nevada
Senior | University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Focus of study: Real Estate

Gonzalez is a senior at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where she is majoring in Real Estate and minoring in Communication. At the age of 19, she became a real estate agent to get industry experience while also studying at university. Gonzalez has been following her mother’s real estate investment journey since she was a child and hopes to one day become an investor herself.

Her involvement within the Lee Business School and other student campus organizations keeps her busy. She leads the Real Estate Club as president and has initiated the creation of several other registered student organizations such as Rebel Reads YA and Lee Women in Business. Her goal is to jump into Title and Escrow after she graduates and eventually become an escrow officer.
 

Chloe Heiligenstein
Hometown: Madison, Wisconsin
Senior | College of Charleston
Focus of study: Commercial Real Estate Finance

Heiligenstein is a senior majoring in Commercial Real Estate Finance with a minor in Finance. Her passion and interest have been in real estate since high school after discovering the intuitive approach to being your own boss. After being exposed to the commercial side of real estate four years ago, Heiligenstein has been persistent in learning and interning every semester to gain more commercial real estate exposure.

She is currently working as an intern at Colliers International. Her work ethic and motivation to be a real estate professional grows daily as she immerses herself in her job and coursework. Upon graduation in May 2021, Heiligenstein plans to focus on brokerage, specifically industrial product type. She has been a member of CREW since 2019 and is very thankful for all she has learned, as well the many wonderful women who are a part of the organization.
 

Emma Hopkins
Hometown: Calgary, Alberta
Senior | University of Calgary
Focus of study: Real Estate/Commerce

Hopkins is a senior at University of Calgary obtaining a Bachelor of Commerce under the Westman Centre for Real Estate Studies. She will be the second female to graduate from this program, which launched at University of Calgary three years ago.

Since May 2019, Hopkins has been working as a Brokerage Coordinator at JLL alongside her full course load. She aspires to be a broker and notes that the role of the traditional broker is going to change drastically in the time she is building her career. Hopkins is focused on constantly learning about property management, capital markets, workplace strategy, real estate law and technology advancements.
 

Monique Kachadoorian
Hometown: Fairhaven, Massachusetts
Senior | Stonehill College
Focus of Study: Marketing and Entrepreneurship

Kachadoorian is a senior at Stonehill College studying marketing and entrepreneurship. She has worked alongside her father, who owns a residential construction company in Cape Cod, since she was 10 years old. Kachadoorian shares her father’s love of real estate and construction, and her first internship helped determine her path.

She enjoys developing communities through involved, meaningful work on job sites. She has placed her career focus on construction and real estate, even obtaining her Unrestricted Construction Supervisors License at 19 years old. Kachadoorian has a passion for the industry and plans on eventually owning her own commercial construction company so she can continue to positively improve the communities she builds in as well as help other women in the industry to do the same.
 

Carolyn Kane
Hometown: Excelsior, Minnesota
Graduate | University of Wisconsin–Madison
Focus of study: Real Estate

Kane is a second-year MBA student at the Wisconsin School of Business and the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate. She credits her interest in real estate to the strong women in her life who have inspired her to follow in their footsteps to become an executive leader in real estate. Kane began her professional career at RED Capital Group, a commercial lending firm, as an analyst in the Multifamily Originations team.

In 2019, she decided to pursue her MBA to invest in her own leadership, as well as seek a career transition to private equity. Her current internship at Link Industrial, Blackstone’s industrial operating platform, has exposed her to the acquisitions and asset management side of the industry, which she hopes to pursue a career in.
 

Eun Jung (Grace) Ko
Hometown: Victoria, British Columbia
Graduate | Harvard University
Focus of study: Energy and Environments

Ko is a first-year graduate student majoring in energy and environments at Harvard University. Educated and trained as an architect, and working on projects for mixed-use to civic and community outreach, she believes that commercial real estate will increasingly adapt sustainability in the coming years and greatly benefit from implementation of green building technologies. Ko is interested in developing financially feasible green design options and promote environmentally responsible commercial real estate projects.
 

Arami Matevosyan
Hometown: La Crescenta, California
Graduate | Harvard University
Focus of study: Real Estate Development

Matevosyan is pursuing her graduate degree in Real Estate Development at Harvard University. She is focusing her studies on the intersection of resilient development and adaptive reuse to create sustainable market transformation. Her experience in commercial tenant improvement led her to explore how green building initiatives impact trends in construction as well as create opportunities to address environmental issues in real estate. She intends to synthesize her knowledge of the built environment with urban and economic indicators of growth to reposition buildings as assets in the market.

Matevosyan’s passion for sustainability stems from her undergraduate studies in Sustainable Environmental Design and her work as a green building general contractor in the Bay Area. She is also LEED AP ID+C, WELL AP, CAPM, and OSHA-10 accredited. Her goal is to become an industry leader to promote profitable, purposeful, and barrier breaking development.
 

Erin McNally
Mason, Ohio
Senior | University of Cincinnati
Focus of study: Real Estate and International Business

McNally is senior at the University of Cincinnati Carl H. Lindner College of Business majoring in Real Estate with a minor in International Business. Her experience in nearly 15 different jobs, in addition to large student projects and studying abroad, has strengthened her leadership and team-oriented skills. She has held leadership positions in student projects and the University of Cincinnati Real Estate Association (UCREA), and strives to be a leader in every role.

She traveled to Ireland, Scotland and Canada with the University of Cincinnati in the past year in order to expand her cultural knowledge, create global relationships, and learn about new technical advances at various universities. In addition to her diverse experiences, she credits her parents for her interests in Real Estate. Their shared experiences with the real estate industry and professionals have fueled her interests in the industry.
 

Hannah Pauls
Hometown: Joelton, Tennessee
Senior | Lipscomb University
Focus of study: Civil Engineering

Pauls became inspired by the sustainable infrastructure innovations that have been developed on Israel’s diverse and limited real estate. She aspires to become an active participant in developing land in such a way to have a positive impact on the triple bottom line. Her search led her to choose to pursue a degree in civil engineering.

Pauls will graduate in Spring 2021 from Lipscomb’s Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering. Her interest and dedication to sustainable development has led her to become involved in leadership roles in Lipscomb’s ASCE student chapter and in its humanitarian engineering efforts, and also spending her summers interning with engineers. She hopes to become a leader in designing infrastructure and to apply her skill set in responsibly developing land and resources on multiple continents.
 

Sumukhi Prasad
Hometown: San Antonio, Texas
Senior | University of Texas at Austin
Focus of study: Environmental Engineering

Prasad is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin majoring in environmental engineering and is additionally earning a certificate in humanitarian engineering. She was first exposed to commercial real estate when she took Project Management and Economics at UT Austin. She became immediately interested in the field and decided to participate in the 2020 UCREW Austin Competition where she learned about commercial real estate with the help of several mentors and experts from the industry.

Upon graduating from UT Austin, Prasad plans on receiving a graduate degree in either environmental engineering or law and hopes to work in commercial real estate to apply her skills in engineering to environmental sustainability and conservation.
 

Arden Pray
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Senior | The University of Texas at Dallas
Focus of Study: Real Estate Development

Pray is a business administration student concentrating in real estate development under the Weitzman Institute for Real Estate at UT Dallas. She currently serves as Vice President of the UT Dallas Real Estate Club. Her experience with the club and her internship at LINC Commercial Realty have been driving forces behind her passion for commercial real estate, introducing her to countless professionals and all the different facets of the industry.

She has been passionate about real estate since a very young age. She was first exposed to the industry through her mother who is a residential broker. In college, her mentor from her internship, a CREW Dallas member, has taught her that a career in commercial real estate gives you the unique opportunity be self-made and self-sufficient, two things that are very important to her. Following graduation, Pray plans to eventually open her own real estate brokerage, and remain involved with CREW.
 

Samantha Richwine
Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia
Senior | The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Focus of Study: Interior Architecture

Richwine is a senior majoring in interior architecture at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville and plans to work as a commercial office designer upon graduation. She first became interested in architecture because commercial real estate allows designers to impact communities, big and small, and allows them to create a cohesive built environment for the benefit of society. She enjoys using her creativity to create design solutions to leave a positive impact on the world around her.

Upon graduation, Richwine plans to work at an interior design firm with a focus on sustainable office design. She is excited to graduate into an industry that allows her to work with inspiring and talented people daily and wants to continue learning as much as possible after graduation.
 

Chloe Ruan
Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia
Graduate| University of Pennsylvania
Focus of Study: Real Estate

Ruan is a second year MBA student at the Wharton School. She is a Real Estate Career Fellow as well as the Co-President of Penn Student Women in Real Estate (PSWiRE). Prior to Wharton, she was a research analyst at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

During her six-year tenure, she invested in mortgage-backed securities as a part of the Global Fixed Income team. This summer, she is interning with the direct real estate team at Partners Group in Denver to underwrite value-add real estate investment opportunities across the U.S.
 

Taylor Sernett
Hometown: Cedar Falls, Iowa
Senior | Iowa State University
Focus of Study: Finance and Accounting

Sernett is an honor student at Iowa State University. She has maintained a 4.0 GPA and will graduate in May with a degree in Finance and a minor in Accounting. She credits her initial interest in commercial real estate to the positive work experiences of friends and mentors in the industry. Her current internship has given her exposure to private debt lending by building cash flows and calculating property values for multiple property types in a variety of markets.

She serves on the Ivy College of Business student council and is a member of Collegiate Women in Business at Iowa State. Her participation outside of the classroom has given her a strong network to rely on, something she plans to continue building beyond graduation. Sernett believes getting involved with an organization like CREW will greatly strengthen her network of ambitious professionals.
 

Autumn Tomlin
Hometown: Erie, Pennsylvania
Junior | Howard University
Focus of Study: Architecture

Tomlin is a junior majoring in architecture in Howard University’s five-year master’s program. She is expected to graduate in May 2022. Her commitment to the field has developed into key leadership roles at the collegiate level. This past year she helped, revamp Howard’s American Institute of Architects student chapter.

Tomlin’s experience in development and her passion for architecture and improving communities has helped her recognize that investing in good commercial real estate is important in developing long-lasting communities. Upon graduation, it is her goal to put her knowledge and skills into practice in the areas of redevelopment and revitalization. Ultimately, she would like to own her own firm and work in overlooked cities that need help revitalization. She hopes to create a culture focused on curating efficient user experiences through quality design, while positively adding to the urban fabric.
 

Tu-Uyen Tran
Hometown: Charlotte, North Carolina
Senior | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Focus of Study: Business Administration

Tran is a senior majoring in business administration with an area of emphasis in real estate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a first-generation college student, she wants to use her education and experiences to further her passion for commercial real estate. Tran completed two real estate internships providing her experience with private equity real estate, allowing her to understand the process of acquisitions. She previously worked part-time in school doing lease work and property management for a student housing development.

Along with her real estate experiences, Tran is an active executive leadership member of the Undergraduate Real Estate Club at Carolina. Her passion and commitment to real estate pushes her to learn more everyday about the industry.
 

Mackenzie Zabel
Hometown: Benton Harbor, Michigan
Junior | University of Michigan
Focus of Study: Civil Engineering

Zabel is a junior at the University of Michigan majoring in Civil Engineering and minoring in Music. She is also pursuing a specialization in sustainable engineering through her university. In addition to her studies, she is on the board for both Chi Epsilon National Civil Engineering Honor Society and the Seismic Design Team, which applies Earthquake Engineering to model a building at international competitions.

She has had several internships in construction, and she is excited to continue to grow and learn in this industry. Upon graduation in 2022, Zabel anticipates working with large structures with an emphasis on design.
 

Emily Zhou
Hometown: Southlake, Texas
Junior | University of Texas at Austin
Focus of Study: Real Estate Finance

Zhou is a junior at the University of Texas studying finance with a real estate concentration. This summer, she will be interning with JLL, and was recently named President of the Undergraduate Real Estate Society at UT.

Zhou first became interested in the field after being contacted by a local brokerage firm. Following this conversation, she promptly acquired her Texas Real Estate License and joined the Undergraduate Real Estate Society (URES) on campus. Through URES, she was able to compete in an international real estate case competition hosted by the University of British Columbia, where her team placed second. Zhou aspires to be a commercial real estate financial analyst in New York upon graduation.