Savanna Fumbi Selected as a Ronald E. McNair Scholar
University of South Carolina Beaufort’s Savanna Fumbi has been selected as a Ronald
E. McNair Scholar. Fumbi is a sophomore Beaufort College Honors student majoring in
psychology.This national McNair Scholars program, headquartered at USC Columbia, was established to honor the legacy of Ronald E. McNair, a South Carolina native who earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. McNair was our country’s second black astronaut and one of seven crew members killed in the 1986 Challenger space shuttle explosion.
The competitive post-baccalaureate achievement program named for McNair aims to increase the number of Ph.D. students who are first-generation, Pell-eligible, or from underrepresented groups in graduate education. The federally funded McNair Scholars program offers faculty mentoring, research experience, and other academic opportunities to promising undergraduate students from around the U.S. McNair Scholars are actively recruited by graduate programs, which often offer them tuition waivers, graduate assistantships, and fellowships.
Fumbi was born in Kenya and lived there until she was eight years old. She also lived in the Netherlands before moving to the United States. She attended high school in Hardeeville, South Carolina, where she graduated in 2022 from Royal Live Oaks Academy.
Fumbi’s career goal is to become a medical scientist. She plans to earn both a medical degree and a doctorate in Psychology. In her McNair Scholars application, she wrote: “I have always wanted to analyze medicine as I observed how illness impacts the world in often unexpected ways. My goal is to be actively engaged in scientific research about the human body and mind as well as the overall impact of the healthcare system on those who need it most.”
The McNair Scholars program includes summers of residential sessions hosted on the USC Columbia campus and shorter seminars during the academic year. Fumbi’s research topic will be “High Maternal Mortality Rates of African American Women.”
McNair projects provide opportunities for in-depth research or other scholarly activities; summer internships; seminars and other educational activities designed to prepare students for doctoral study; tutoring; academic counseling; and activities designed to assist students in securing admission to and financial assistance for graduate programs.