Roswell Park Cancer Institute is proud to announce that applications for the Eva M. Noles Scholarship will be accepted for the 2017-2018 school year March 1 through May 15, 2017.

Established in 2008, the scholarship is awarded annually to a Roswell Park employee or community member from an underrepresented group who is seeking higher education at a local college or university in the field of health care.

The $1,000 scholarship is named for Eva Noles, the first African-American woman to train and graduate as a registered nurse in Buffalo. Ms. Noles attended the E.J. Meyer Memorial Hospital School of Nursing (now Erie County Medical Center), a school that had never admitted an African-American student before accepting Ms. Noles. This launched a career that would blaze a trail for generations of women to come. She finished at the top of her class in 1940, persevering despite continued racial prejudice throughout her studies and even early in career. Ms. Noles started working at Roswell Park five years later.

Ms. Noles was a lifelong learner. She went on to earn a bachelor of science in nursing and a master of arts in education, both from the University at Buffalo. She worked at Roswell Park for more than 30 years, leading Roswell Park’s Nursing Department from 1971 until her retirement in 1974.

Eva Noles died December 2, 2015, at age 96, but her legacy lives on at Roswell Park through the scholarship that bears her name. She is memorialized in the Institute’s Scott Bieler Clinical Sciences Center, where her portrait is on display.

In 2016, Roswell Park employee Alexandra Francis received the 8^th annual Eva Noles Scholarship. In her acceptance speech, Ms. Francis explained how Ms. Noles inspired her to continue her education and encouraged her to be a trailblazer while she worked to reach her personal and professional goals.

For more information about the scholarship, contact David Scott, Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Roswell Park, at david.scott@roswellpark.org. The Diversity Office at Roswell Park supports the mission, vision and values of Roswell Park Cancer Institute by promoting diversity and inclusion as an integral part of the Institute’s goal to understand, prevent and cure cancer.