Pitt students win Voyager scholarships, commit to public service

Anjola Oludayo clocked in for her 8 a.m. shift at PJ’s Coffee in Maryland one July day, unaware that an hour later the course of her college career would change forever. 

Oludayo received an email at 9:17 a.m. congratulating her for earning a spot in the 2023 cohort of Obama-Chesky scholarship winners, and she instantly burst into tears. 

“I went to the back and literally bawled my eyes out,” Oludayo, a junior pharmaceutical sciences major, said. “You don’t really know how much you’re carrying until somebody else takes a load off of you, and for me, the load was financially taking care of school.” 

Founded in 2022, the Obama-Chesky Scholarship for Public Service — the Voyager Scholarship — offers winners up to $50,000 in financial aid, and an additional $10,000 to put toward their “Summer Voyage.” Rising sophomores are eligible to apply, and winners participate in the program during their junior and senior years of college. The Summer Voyage is a public service project winners design during their junior year and complete during the summer between their junior and senior years.

“Students are invited to an annual summit to help define and inspire their public service journey,” an Obama Foundation Spokesperson said. “President Obama and Brian Chesky attend the summit to engage with the Voyagers and share their fundamental belief and lived experience that exposure to new places and experiences broaden our horizons and redefine what we believe is possible.”

An “increasingly globalized world” needs young leaders who can work together to bridge divides and solve related challenges, so the Obamas and Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, founded the Voyager Scholarship to help shape such leaders, according to the spokesperson. They said this year’s cohort of winners consists of 100 individuals representing 33 states and territories and 75 colleges and universities. Among these winners are Pitt students Oludayo and Erin Lancaster, a junior psychology major. 

Oludayo’s service project will focus on researching the ways animal feeding operations affect water quality in the surrounding areas. She said her mother grew up in a rural part of Nigeria where the water reeked of sulfur, which inspired the idea. There are different phases winners go through when designing their service project, according to Oludayo, and she’s currently in the “planning” phase. 

“I did a research paper in high school about it, but I didn’t get to do as much because it was during COVID, so it was all theoretical and hypothetical numbers,” Oludayo said. “But I definitely want to implement that in real life, real-time using the scholarship.” 

When it comes to dealing with large animal groups, Oludayo said a lot of displacement occurs regarding their excrement and food. She added that the practice of farming in itself requires a lot of chemicals, and when it rains, those chemicals go into the water supply. 

“With a lot of rural areas, they rely on the local water source for water,” Oludayo said. “It’s kind of a backhanded thing that they have to farm to survive, but they also need the water that’s in those farming areas to survive. But the farming is polluting the water if it’s not done properly.”

Lancaster said Voyager winners can pursue an independent project or an internship with an organization that’s working on a cause they’re interested in for their summer voyage. She chose to pursue an internship with an organization that focuses on mental health accessibility and stigmatizations in under-represented communities, especially youth communities. However, she isn’t sure which organization exactly, as she’s still in the planning phase like Oludayo. 

“I was learning more about psychology in my courses, and learning more about how that intersects with other identities and how different groups of people have different advantages and disadvantages,” Lancaster said. “And I think it’s something that people deserve to have equal opportunities to take care of.” 

Lancaster said she hopes to expand her knowledge of mental health stigmatization during her voyage by observing the ways an organization addresses it in their community, then taking and applying those observations to her own. 

“I can bring [the knowledge] back to my own community and help the issue of lack of accessibility,” Lancaster said. 

Oludayo’s interest in public service was piqued at a young age, as she came to the realization that many populations, including ones she’s a part of, go underserved. She said she knows what it feels like to need help, and aims to do all she can to reduce that feeling in others. 

“Anytime somebody needs help, I became that friend, I became that person,” Oludayo said. “Like, if you need something, please let me know. If I can’t help you, I’ll find somebody who can. I was always that bridge between those who needed help and those who could help.”