Two SCC students nominated to All-Washington Academic Team

Willow Strey (left) and Isaac Tchao are Shoreline Community College’s
2020 All-Washington Academic Team honorees

Two members of Shoreline Community College’s Class of 2020, Willow Strey and Isaac Tchao, were nominated to this year’s All-Washington Academic Team. Strey went on to win a national award and be named a Coca-Cola Silver Scholar. Strey is a member of The Honors College at Shoreline.

Both in their second years at Shoreline, Strey and Tchao were nominated to the All-Washington Academic Team by their professors for academic excellence and positive contributions to the community. The program “recognizes and honors our state’s finest higher education students… the men and women who have demonstrated a commitment to success in the classroom and in the communities in which they live.” All honorees attend one of the state’s public community or technical colleges.

Award winners are typically honored with a ceremony in Olympia, but due to COVID-19, this year’s ceremony had to be canceled. National winners attend a ceremony in Dallas. That event also had to be canceled for 2020.

Willow Strey is a physical sciences major who plans to transfer to University of San Diego California. She hopes to earn a PhD in physics as a basis for academic research, possibly in the field of fluid dynamics. A member of The Honors College at Shoreline, Willow is also president of the math club. Always happy to spread the joy of math, Willow facilitates free math tutoring to nursing students taking their Medication Calculation exams.

This is the first time in the College’s history that a student has made it past the All-Washington Academic Team award and onto nationals. 

The accomplishment is of extra note as Strey came to the College through the Career Educations Option (CEO) program, which is a program that gives 16-21 year olds without a high school diploma a chance to return to school.

Isaac Tchao is a computer science major who plans to transfer to University of Washington. He hopes to start a nonprofit dedicated to engineering AI-based, data analysis technologies that can be used to optimize social aid systems, such as food distribution, or support climate change research and endangerment detection. President of Associated Student Government, Tchao is active on campus committees and has volunteered with the Tiny Houses Seattle project and on a campus recycling initiative.