Pasadena Water and Power (PWP) has named the winners of its 2025 Educational Scholarship, spotlighting two students from the local community for their academic achievements and dedication to STEM fields, according to an announcement on the City of Pasadena’s website. Luciana Piro from Polytechnic School is the first-place recipient, receiving a $5,000 scholarship, while Alyssa Yepez from Pasadena High School follows as the second-place winner with a $2,500 scholarship award.
Their success comes from a competition where students within PWP’s service area tackled this year’s prompt, which asked about the intersection of their STEM passion with the utility industry, public services, or sustainability efforts, and the annual scholarship, which is opening again in August 2025, is intended to support seniors enrolling in post-secondary education, Piro plans to attend Barnard College to study biology and Yepez eyes a future at UCLA, majoring in civil engineering, both driven by personal experiences that shaped their career aspirations according to the same announcement.
"Luciana Piro is the PWP Educational Scholarship first-place winner," the official statement reads, detailing her journey from dealing with severe food allergies to a growing passion for biological physics, and her commitment towards drug treatment development’s environmental impact and the accessibility of global healthcare. Piro aspires to effect positive change in these areas through her studies and eventual career.
Furthermore, "Alyssa Yepez is the PWP Educational Scholarship second-place winner." She is fueled by a goal to design stronger, sustainable infrastructures capable of withstanding future disasters, a drive that aligns her with PWP’s mission of not just supplying power and water but doing so with an eye on sustainability and community strength.
For those interested in next year's opportunity, PWP encourages potential scholars to check out the PWP website for more details on the scholarship program and application guidelines. Pasadena Water and Power stands as a civic-minded entity, delivering essential services to over 65,000 electrical customers and nearly 38,000 water consumers, and is deeply involved in fueling the educational aspirations of its community's youth.
