Miami Dade College Honors College graduates—Johnny Barahona, David Ramírez, and María Romero—have been awarded the Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship.
The scholarship awards each recipient with $55,000 per year to complete a bachelor’s degree at a four-year transfer institution. More than 1,300 students applied nationwide.
Miami Dade College had 19 semifinalists for the scholarship this year, the most of any institution and the school had three of the five winners in Florida. More than 1,300 students applied nationwide.
To apply, candidates were required to have a minimum 3.5 GPA, be sophomores or recent graduates of a two-year institution in the United States and demonstrate financial need.
Johnny Barahona
Barahona immigrated from Honduras to the United States in 2019. He faced the challenge of getting accustomed to life in a new country and a new high school during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite that, he took care of his two younger siblings, a brother and sister, as well as his grandparents.
He enrolled in the Honors College at Eduardo J. Padrón Campus in August of 2024, where he developed a passion for economics. Barahona graduated in April with an associates degree in accounting.
At Padrón Campus, the 20-year-old served as president of the Florida Business Leaders of America-Phi Beta Lambda chapter, was an Honors College ambassador and a member of the campus’ Phi Theta Kappa chapter—Beta Kappa Iota.
“Ultimately, I want to help lessen the economic hardships in developing and underserved countries and communities while also lessening the impact climate change is having on said communities,” Barahona said.
He plans to attend Yale University and earn a bachelor’s degree in ethics, politics, &
Economics. Barahona plans to become an international environmental economic advisor to help international corporations and non-governmental organizations.
David Ramírez
Ramírez’s love for mathematics started as a youngster. When he was five, he asked his mother to test his math skills while she was armed with a calculator.
He left Cuba when he was 17, making pit stops in Spain and Orlando, before making his way to Miami. At first, he struggled with the language barriers, but he quickly adjusted.
After graduating from Miami Killian Senior High School in 2024, he applied to the Honors College at Kendall Campus where he met his mentor, mathematics professor Jyrko Correa-Morris.
With the help of Correa-Morris and Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Elvis Cabrera, Ramírez published his first research paper, Structural Redundancy in Subspace Network Coding via Atomic Decomposition. The project involved geometric lattices, network coding, optimization and homological algebra.
Their findings have been presented at the International Congress on Information and Communication Technology Conference in London and the Undergraduate Research Technology Conference at MIT.
The 20-year-old, who graduated from MDC in April with a degree in mechanical engineering, has participated in the Global Citizenship Alliance Seminar in Austria and he was awarded the Barry Goldwater Scholarship. Ramirez currently serves as Vice President of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and of Math4U.
He plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in advanced robotics and control with a minor in mathematics at MIT.
“My goal is to help develop innovative technologies that bridge theoretical research and real-world engineering applications while creating solutions that have a meaningful impact on society.” Ramírez said.
María Romero
As a kid in Cuba, Romero often experienced electrical power outages.
“I would step outside, look at the dark sky and the only thing [that was there] were the stars,” Romero said. “It made me want to reach them.”
When she was 13, she moved to the United States and took full advantage of all the opportunities in front of her. While at Southwest Miami Senior High School, she applied to a scholarship offered by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.
Despite being rejected for the scholarship, Romero learned of another opportunity—-the Honors College at Padrón Campus. She realized the program offered her a bevy of opportunities.
The 20-year-old served as the president of the Verba Vitae Book Club at Padrón Campus, where she combined her love for poetry and self expression. She was also a member of Beta Kappa Iota.
During her time at the College, Romero contributed to undergraduate research in physics, where she investigated the influence of solar wind parameters and interplanetary magnetic field on geomagnetic storm intensity.
The research helped her land an internship this summer in the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
She graduated from MDC in April with an associate’s degree in mechanical engineering. Romero plans to continue her studies at Princeton University, where she will pursue a bachelor’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering.
The headshots used in this article were provided by the Kendall Campus Media Services Department and the Office of Information Technology at the Eduardo J. Padrón Campus.
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