CEF Celebrates the Class of 2025
On June 13, 2025, Chicago Engineers’ Foundation honored the high school and college students named as 2025 Incentive Award recipients. At this year’s event, the Chicago Engineers’ Foundation presented more than $120,000 in scholarship awards to Chicago students.
More than 120 guests including students, educators, engineering professionals, alumni, and friends attended the Award Celebration, held at the Union League Club of Chicago. George A. Smith, a co-founder of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) AND a Chicago Engineers’ Foundation alum (class of 1971), served as the evening’s keynote speaker.
Mr. Smith talked about his life and career path, starting as a Chicago Public School student, a graduate of Lindblom Academy, and the early years of NSBE during his undergraduate studies at Purdue University. He went on to discuss his career, community service, and his life-long commitment to STEM learning. Read more about Mr. Smith here.
The 2025 Incentive Award Celebration was generously sponsored by:
A highlight of the evening was remarks presented by four Incentive Award recipients, who were named the organization’s first recipients of Engineering Futures Fund awards. The Engineering Futures Fund creates high-value scholarship award opportunities for Chicago’s future engineers who demonstrate outstanding achievements and addresses student needs like rising tuition costs, financial stress and loan debt, and to help improve attrition rates in engineering. Each of this year’s award recipients were considered to receive an Engineering Futures Fund award, and four were selected this year, one Scholar from each of our grade levels. The Engineering Futures Fund was established with seed funding from the Cless Family Foundation and members of the Chicago Engineers’ Foundation Board of Directors. With philanthropic support, the Fund will continue to create at least four $5,000 awards per year, and all of CEF Scholars will be eligible for consideration. The long-term plan is for the Engineering Futures Fund to continue to grow in order to present even more high-value awards for future engineers.
The Class of 2025 are Chicago students pursuing engineering careers. They are graduates from public, private, parochial, and charter high schools throughout the city. Many commuted across Chicago daily to attend their high schools, from neighborhoods on the south, west, and north sides, as well as many suburban towns.
Almost 40% are the first generation in their family to attend college. The average GPA among all of the recipients is 3.7. Further, among the high school recipients the average of their community service hours is 220!
Incentive Award recipients are studying many facets of engineering in college ranging from civil and mechanical to biomedical, aerospace, and computer science. They are attending some of the finest engineering schools in the country from local universities to programs nationwide. Incentive Award recipients are in engineering classrooms across the country and represent some of the best of the next generation of engineers.
Incentive Awards are made possible by individuals, families, professional associations, and companies committing to fully fund awards for the recipients. Some sponsors support annual awards for different students each year, and others may follow specific students through 4 years of study. The sponsorship program grows each year, and Chicago Engineers’ Foundation is honored by every partnership. Many thanks to the 2025 Award Sponsors!
