JANA ORIEF

Jana Orief, a senior at Wichita Northwest High School, has been selected as a member of the 2025 class of the Timothy P. O’Shaughnessy Foundation’s Lifelong Learning Scholarship.

Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Jana traveled around the world with her parents, Noha Hindia and Tamer Orief. Due to her parents’ international careers, she lived across four different countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, before finally settling in the United States. Jana also enjoyed traveling throughout Europe, from the Scandinavian Isles to France. She moved to Kansas in 2017 and has been a Wichita resident ever since.

Through her time overseas, she came to understand the role of cultural immersion in expanding one’s worldview. She also realized that global issues don’t exist in isolation. Jana attended Brooks Middle School and is currently an Early College Academy senior at Wichita Northwest High School. She will attend Cornell University’s College of Engineering in the fall with an intended major in Computer Science.

Jana’s passion for technology started when she received a Nintendo Switch for Christmas. The first game she played, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, immersed her in a vast world, sparking a deep curiosity about game design and the magic behind these virtual realms. Captivated by the potential software held in bringing people together, Jana was ultimately compelled to pursue a career in the technology sector. 

Jana strives to unite others in the pursuit of inclusivity to leverage diverse perspectives across multiple disciplines. At Wichita Northwest High School, Jana’s most fulfilling act was founding the Grizzly Game Developers, a club dedicated to creating programming opportunities for students of all disciplines to learn to code while applying their diverse extracurricular backgrounds to game development. 

She is also an active member of her DECA chapter, participating in the International Career Development Conference under Entrepreneurship and placing eighth in Kansas for her start-up business plan. She was a section leader in her school’s marching band and President of her Science Olympiad team. Academically, she is an alum of Northwest’s Early College Academy program, which allows her to take college-level classes at Friends University. She is currently valedictorian and is slated to graduate with 53 college credits. 

Beyond the classroom, she dedicates her time to several volunteer organizations. Her service spans Rivercross Hospice and the National Honor Society, and she serves as Secretary of Go for Glass, a global mentorship and study resource platform that supports DECA students worldwide. Jana finds joy in uplifting others, especially when using her leadership and community-building skills to connect students with educational resources and opportunities.

Next year, Jana plans to attend Cornell University to further her passion for interdisciplinary technology development, with a focus on how artificial intelligence can transform industries and improve lives.

Jana is deeply honored to be a recipient of the Timothy P. O’Shaughnessy Lifelong Learning scholarship. She is immensely grateful to the O’Shaughnessy family for their generosity and commitment to supporting students’ aspirations throughout their lives. With the foundation’s support, she is committed to becoming a catalyst for positive change in society.