About Us

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Welcome to the Jérôme Lohez 9/11 Scholarship Foundation

The Jérôme Lohez 9/11 Scholarship Foundation is the only charitable organization established after the 9/11 tragedy that is dedicated specifically to promoting educational and cultural exchange among the U.S., France and China. By providing scholarship awards to multinational students, enabling them to study in one another’s homelands, the Foundation aims to shape the next generation of global citizen, along with a new class of international policy makers. The Foundation also seeks to develop a pool of highly-trained multicultural business leaders to serve as innovators in multinational commerce.

The foundation was launched in November 2005 in honor of Jérôme Robert Lohez, a French citizen who died in the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Chers Amis,

The frontiers of culture do not, in fact, coincide with national boundaries. The latter divide people according to some of their loyalties and customs, but not according to what makes them happy, what makes one a genuine human being. I am surprised by international misunderstandings in their subtlest forms, by the inability of people to tune into one another’s wavelength.

Engineering technologies and computer science had made it easy to cross national frontiers physically, but there has been no invention of new mental habits to enable people to cope with others who have different world views. For that to happen, we must encourage young people to travel, to study and to live in countries different from their own.

When individuals have looked beyond their familiar surroundings, when they have lived and traveled in foreign lands, they have discovered that many strangers share their emotions and interests. No life can be considered to be fully lived if it has not benefited from all the encounters of which it is capable.

Every scientific discovery, indeed, is inspired by a similar search and by the meeting of ideas that previously never came together. So too is the objective of our foundation, which is to give students opportunities to find connections between what seem to have no connection, linking applied science with culture, people and places by rendering communications, encounters and exchanges possible.

This foundation was founded in honor of a deceased young man who came from the nation that gave the world “La declaration des Droits de L’Homme et du Citoyen” (The Declarations of Rights of Man and Citizen), and who was an engineer who believed in humanism. This foundation also is an effort by a group of private citizens to do something positive for society.

Un grand merci,

Executive Board

Dening LohezFounder and President
Faculty Member, Department of Economics, Queens College, City University of New York
Ellie Abdi, EdD, Vice President
Clinical Faculty Member, Montclair State University
Brian T. Kelly, CPA, Treasurer
Brian T. Kelly CPA & Associates
Sharen Glennon, Secretary
Retired Assistant Dean, School of Business, Stevens Institute of Technology
Thomas Franklin
Assistant Professor, School of Communication and Media, Montclair State University
Emily Wexler
Managing Director, We Oppose Violence Everywhere Now (WOVEN)

Advisory Board

The Honorable Anne-Claire Legendre, Consul General of France in New York
Dr. Joel Courtois, Director, EPITA, Paris
Dr. Merit Janow, Dean, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Dr. Christophe Pierre, Provost, Stevens Institute of Technology
Dr. Gregory Prastacos, Dean, School of Business, Stevens Institute of Technology
Dr. Lisa Rosen-Metesch, Dean, School of General Studies, Columbia University
Ms. Diana Wege, Founder and President, We Oppose Violence Everywhere Now (WOVEN)

Scholarship Award Selection Committee

Professor George Calhoun, Committee Chair
Director, Quantitative Finance Program, School of Business, Stevens Institute of Technology
Dr. Ellie Abdi
Clinical Faculty Member, Montclair State University
Ms. Sharen Glennon
Retired, School of Business, Stevens Institute of Technology
Professor Xu Jia
Associate Professor, School of Journalism, Fudan University, Shanghai
Ms. Eleonora Russo
Academic Coordinator, School of Public Affairs, Sciences Po, Paris
Professor Fanglu Sun
School of International of International Affairs and Public Administration, Fudan University
Ms. Emily Wexler
Managing Director, WOVEN

Young Alumni Council

Casey Waltz, Council Chair
Director, Social Media and Digital Strategy, Mizuho
Camille Andrieu (2014 Recipient)
École Nationale d’Administration (L’ÉNA)
Rebecca Assouline-Bera (2015 Recipient)
School of Public Affairs, Sciences Po, Paris
Paula Henin, Legal Counselor (pro bono by case) and 2010 Recipient
International Arbitration Attorney, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer US LLP
Jeremy Ng (2017 Recipient)
Investment Associate, Bridgewater Associates

Volunteers

Marjorie Maman, Manager, French language translation

Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the French Republic (Feb. 19, 2008)
Zhao JianJun, Ambassador of China to France (May 14. 2007, in Chinese)
Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the UMP (Oct. 9, 2006, in French)