Princeton Club of Chicago

 Meet Our Chicago Regional Princeton Prize Awardees

Samantha Taylor, 2021 Princeton Prize Award Recipient

During her senior year, Samantha has been the President of the Black Student Union and Co-President of Peer Multicultural Educators at Illinois Mathematics & Science Academy. As president of these organizations, she led conversations and town halls on topics including colorism, police brutality, and racism in higher education. As Co-President of Peer Multicultural Educators, she founded Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy’s first annual diversity conference, Chasing Equity, where students from around the country were invited to learn about how they can make their campuses more equitable. She has also worked alongside the Great Lakes Equity Center to collect and analyze institutional data and equity policies to make her campus more inclusive. She is an activist who is passionate about social equity and advocacy and working to create a future that is representative and inclusive of everyone. Some of her favorite accomplishments include creating her own publication called Blackbox that celebrates and shares Black culture and the Black experience, having a feature segment on NBC News as a young activist, spending Tuesday afternoons teaching public policy/activism to underclassmen, and speaking alongside Dr. Angela Davis in a fireside chat. She will be continuing her education this fall at the University of Chicago with a full ride to study Economics and Public Policy on the pre-law track. 

Yvin is a Korean-American high school senior currently attending University High School in Normal, Illinois. She serves on the leadership team for Not in Our School (NIOS), is the President of her school's Student Diversity Committee (SDC) and sits on the committee for the local immigrant advocacy organization BN Welcoming. As a NIOS leader, she pioneered the usage of Restorative Circles to address tensions over the 2020 presidential election, hosted rallies and vigils for the Black Lives Matter movement and the AAPI community, and designed an initiative funding teachers seeking more inclusive resources for their classrooms. Her other extracurriculars include being her speech team's Public Address Chair, President of the National Honor Society, and Student Senator, as well as debating and playing the cello. She has committed to studying at Columbia University in the City of New York, studying Political Science with a focus on International Relations and Neuroscience. She hopes to continue her advocacy work, design international trade or healthcare policy, or conduct research for independent think tanks.

Leslie Walker, 2021 Princeton Prize Certificate of Recognition

Leslie is a junior at Walter Payton College Prep, a Chicago Public School. Leslie has led efforts in her school to create a powerful partnership between the Black Student Union and the Latin American Coalition. She led efforts of the two groups to write and publicize a letter of solidarity to unify Black and Brown communities amid the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor protests. The letter was sent to nearly 100 school principals, student groups and media outlets throughout Chicago to demonstrate the importance of solidarity among BIPOC groups. Leslie also led the organizations in preparing and disseminating a guide to creating anti-racist curricula that are inclusive of BIPOC students’ experiences. Through clubs, outreach, and university partnerships, Leslie has focused on creating supportive spaces for Black students in her school and throughout CPS. She is particularly interested in identifying inequitable systems that displace BIPOC individuals and working towards solutions to these inequities. Leslie loves meeting people drastically different from herself and learning about their cultures and experiences. Her passion for healthcare and uplifting underserved communities has cultivated her dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon and human physiologist.

Michelle Silverthorn '04, Moderator

Michelle Silverthorn is an expert on workplace diversity and cultural change, the author of Authentic Diversity, and a
sought-after speaker who leaves audiences equipped with tools for allyship, inclusion, antiracism and equity.