The Heinlein Society has opened applications for the 2018-2019 academic year award. Interested parties should head over to our Education page and download the PDF application form to be filled in and emailed, here.

The award has grown in value every year since its inauguration in 2012, and this year is no exception. This year’s award will be three scholarships of $1,500 each, a 20% increase over last year. One of these, “The Virginia Heinlein Memorial Award” (or “The Ginny”, as we fondly call it) is reserved for the top scoring female candidate in STEM majors as determined by the judges.

For this year, the Board of Directors of The Heinlein Society has designated that the other two awards (which add “science fiction as literature” as an eligible academic pursuit) shall honor the late Yoji Kondo, Ph.D., and the late Jerry Pournelle, Ph.D., both of whom passed away in the last year. Both men were ardent proponents of STEM education, science fiction and science/tech non-fiction authors, and personal friends of Robert A. Heinlein and Virginia Heinlein. Dr. Kondo was a founding Board member of THS, and Dr. Pournelle was a long-time Board member still serving at the time of his passing (he was also interested in this award and served on the judging committee).

Our scholarships are funded from donations by the members of THS, “Heinlein’s Children”, and “Friends of Robert and Ginny” in general. If you’d like to contribute, please visit our Donate page, page down to the “I want to Pay it Forward” section and after picking an amount, select “Education” from the dropdown box.

The deadline for getting applications in to the designated email address is May 15, 2018. Winners and Finalists will be announced on July 7th, 2018, with the non-winning Finalists receiving a certificate suitable for framing recognizing their achievement.