Athena Honors Pinnacle Award Winner Maysoon Lehmeidi

Athena – California’s premier leadership advocate for women in STEM – revealed its “Pinnacle Winners” during its 22nd Annual Pinnacle Awards on August 6. This distinguished industry award recognizes leaders that continuously champion the advancement, promotion and career success of women leading in STEM. Selected from an extraordinary list of nominees, winners in four categories were “virtually” cheered and celebrated across our region’s STEM community.

Maysoon Lehmeidi manages the Academic Connections program for UCSD Extension committed to providing a pre-college summer residential experience that is academically and socially enriching to a diverse population of high-achieving, college-bound high school students motivated to explore the offerings of UC San Diego.  The program engages young people with the future by exposing them to some of the most exciting fields of research and study in bioengineering, life sciences, medicine, and design thinking. In 2019 Maysoon spearheaded the launch of the Boz Life Science Research Immersion program which involved navigating a unique an unprecedented public, private and philanthropic partnership.  Maysoon received the Pinnacle Award for Individual in Service Provider category in part for her work with Boz in delivering best-in-class scientific research experiences to a variety of underserved and underrepresented populations with a strong emphasis on women and girls.