Five Students Win $55,000 Jack Kent Cooke Transfer Scholarship

By Yazid Guelida, Ivette Gomez and Pietra Romano 

Miami Dade College Honors College graduates—Claudia Gomez, Daniela Fonseca, Daniel Yantani Coto, Maite Roque Franco and Victor Michel Gonzalez—were awarded the Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship. 

Each will receive up to $55,000 annually to pay for tuition, living expenses, books and other fees at a four-year transfer institution.

The quintet were among 90 winners selected from a pool of more than 1,600 applicants from community colleges nationwide. Miami Dade College had the most recipients this year.

To qualify, applicants had to be sophomores or recent graduates of a two-year institution in the United States with no previous enrollment at a four-year institution. Other requirements included a minimum 3.5 GPA and proof of financial need. 

Claudia Gomez

When Gomez was at Coral Park Senior High School, she was a shy kid. 

Two years ago, when she started at the Honors College at Kendall Campus, she wanted to change that. And she did, becoming a nationally recognized debater.

The 19-year-old, who served as president of the Kendall Campus debate club, won a silver medal at the Phi Rho Pi National Championship tournament in April.

Born and raised in Miami to a Colombian father and a Peruvian mother, she is the first in her family to attend college in the U.S. 

“When it came to applying to schools, I didn’t really know how to navigate the process,” Gomez said. “I had a general idea, but no idea as to how difficult and competitive it was to be able to attain the upper echelons of higher education.”

As a freshman, she joined XPLORA, a program that promotes English and STEM education to low-income students in Nicaragua and Peru. She co-led the program during her sophomore year, hosting weekly online classes and implementing a health component into the project. 

During a visit to Peru in December of 2023, Gomez learned about the health care disparities in  the country. The following year, she raised $2,000 dollars for educational and health care related expenses for those in need.

In addition to the debate club, Gomez was president of Health Occupation Students of America and vice president of service and leadership for the PTK Omicron Tau Chapter.

Last month, she earned an associate’s degree from MDC in biology with a pre-med track. She  graduated with a 3.92 GPA.

This summer, Gomez will be attending Williams College on a full-ride scholarship. She has yet to decide on a field of study for medical school. 

Daniela Fonseca

 When she was 17 years old, Fonseca left Coro, Venezuela to live in the United States. 

Accompanied by her family, she arrived in Miami and earned her GED. To pay off debts, the family moved to North Carolina to work in a factory. What she saw made her realize the value of taking initiative.

“I would see many elderly people working their lives away, and they were dealing with severe diseases,” Fonseca said. “They were only there because they didn’t know that they had opportunities beyond that.”

In 2023, they moved back to Miami, and Fonseca attended an open house at the Kendall Campus. The rest was history. 

“I was walking through the open house event, and I saw one of the purple tables and I was really curious,” Fonseca said. “I talked to one of the Honors College directors who told me I qualified… I applied almost on the deadline. I got in, and I’m forever grateful for the opportunity.” 

The 21-year-old served as president of Psych-Force, a club at Eduardo J. Padrón Campus dedicated to the betterment of mental health among students. Their activities range from peer counseling to suicide prevention trainings. 

She was also president of the Honors College ambassadors program.

“I’m aware of the blessings that I have had so far in my path, and I want to make others aware of these opportunities,” Fonseca said. “Maybe it’s not that you don’t deserve it, or that you don’t  match the qualifications, but maybe you just don’t have the right information.”

Fonseca graduated in May with a 4.0 GPA and an associate’s degree in psychology from Padrón Campus. 

She will attend Yale University in the fall and hopes to become an immigration lawyer and create a nonprofit organization for immigrants in need. 

Daniel Yantani Coto

In spring of 2024, Yantani found himself discussing the influence of global economics at a castle in Salzburg, Austria as part of the Global Citizenship Alliance cohort. 

“Those conversations opened my mind to a much larger world, a world that I want to provide for as an economic policy maker,” the 20-year-old said.

Yantani grew up in Costa Rica in a low-income household. That experience gave him perspective on the importance of financial literacy.

“I witnessed how economics can change peoples lives,” Yantani said. “I wish to merge my passion for mathematics and economics as a policymaker and serve the people.”

When he arrived in the United States at 14, he was instantly attracted to the world of economics and mathematics. 

During his time at MDC, Yantani was president of the Phi Theta Kappa Beta Alpha Iota Chapter, raising $1,000 for the creation of a garden for a special needs school. In 2024, he became president of the Special Smiles Club, whose mission is to foster inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities. 

His dedication to serving the community led him to become a peer advocate for the Institute of Civic Engagement and Democracy during the 2024 election cycle and a research and outreach fellow for Luisa Santos’ campaign to become a member of the Miami-Dade County Public School Board.

Yantani also won the Guistwhite Scholarship and the 2025 Homestead Campus Board of Trustees scholarship. Both are $5,000 awards. 

This spring, he earned his associate’s degree in economics with a 4.0 GPA from Homestead Campus. He plans to attend Princeton University this fall.  

Maite Roque Franco

Growing up in Sagua La Grande, a province in Cuba, Roque’s father’s work as a doctor sparked her interest in the medical field.

“Doctors in Cuba lack a lot of resources, and they have to make due with what they have,” Roque said. “I was really inspired by how even though he didn’t have much, he could help his patients.”

She moved to the United States in December 2022 and enrolled at the College three months later. During her time at MDC, she founded the Verba Vitae Book Club.

“I started my own club because I’ve loved reading since I was little, and I realized there was no book club at [Padrón],” Roque said.

The bibliophile conducted research as an American Heart Association Hispanic Serving Institutions Scholar under Trinidad Argüelles, an associate professor of psychology at West Campus. The research consisted of using artificial intelligence to prevent strokes in Hispanic patients.

“I feel like sometimes Hispanics don’t really know much about the medical system here in the United States because of language barriers and other issues, so I wanted to see how AI could help us prevent strokes, since we have a really high incidence of strokes in Hispanics,” Roque said. 

Her other research included working with Matthew Nesvet, an assistant professor of anthropology at North Campus. Their studies involved insight on neurological disorders. 

Roque, who served as an ambassador and a peer mentor leader for the Honors College, graduated in May with a 4.0 GPA and an associate’s degree in biology with a pre-med track from Padrón Campus. 

She will be attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and hopes to become a pediatric neurologist. 

Victor González

González has always had a passion for physics and mathematics. 

In Cuba, he won the title of Champion in Physics from 2018-20 and the Physics Knowledge Cup in 2017 and 2018—all while in high school.

Committed to pursuing a higher education in mathematics, González moved by himself to the United States in August of 2023. 

In the last two years, he’s worked on three mathematical research projects using a Massachusetts Institute of Technology platform called Crowdmath—one of them was featured in the prestigious International Journal of Algebra and Computation. He is currently working on three more projects.

“It is something I put a lot of passion and a lot of time into throughout all of those years [in the United States],” González said. “It was very complicated as I had to juggle between academics and work to help my mom in Cuba, and to pay my rent…despite all of that, I found the time to work on my research.”

At Padrón Campus, González worked as a tutor, teaching Calculus I and II to first-year Honors College students. He founded and served as president of For Youth, partnering with PTK  to provide clothing to impoverished communities. 

González was also president of the kids program for the Letter Exchange for Progress and Awareness club and is a founding member of Math4U, a Kendall Campus math club that has conducted more than 70 one-on-one and group tutoring sessions. 

The 23-year-old graduated from MDC last month and earned his associate’s degree in mathematics with a 4.0 GPA.

Earlier this year, he won the $15,000 Barry Goldwater Scholarship and the  $7,500 Mass Family Scholarships. González will continue his studies at either Princeton or MIT— who offered him a  full ride scholarship—as he continues his passion in math and physics.

Some of the interviews for this story were conducted in Spanish.

The headshots used for this story were taken by Reporter photographers Luca Lausell and Geovanny Marcos-Pedro.

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