The Denise Louie Alumni Scholarship honors former students who carry that early spark forward — lifelong learners who are growing into extraordinary people and giving back to the communities that raised them. DLEC is honored to present the 2026 recipients of this scholarship, Carol Zeng and Chris Yan!
Carol Zeng: Growing up with Cantonese as a first language and being a shy child, drawing allowed Carol to express her young imagination. She felt unconditionally encouraged to draw, build, and create boundlessly by her teachers. This foundation supported her creative explorations through the rest of her schooling, where she discovered her interests in design and illustration. She pursued these interests at the University of Washington, where she received a B.A. in Architectural Design with Honors in 2024. She developed a deeper passion for understanding and utilizing design as a tool to connect and empower groups, particularly disinvested or historically marginalized communities. Currently, she is pursuing a Master of Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and additional graduate education as a cross-registered student at Brown University. She hopes to apply her graduate education to an illustration and licensed architecture career, in which she will strive to work collaboratively with other designers, communities, and organizations to reimagine architecture’s capacity to help people access joyful and sustainable spaces.
Chris Yan: Chris’ journey started at Denise Louie’s International District center where he met people from all different types of backgrounds and built some of his closest relationships. Growing up, he spent the majority of his time thinking about his interactions with his classmates. This developed into a desire to learn about people and how we think. As this curiosity grew into a passion for psychology, he found an opportunity to volunteer at Denise Louie again in 2025. This gave him the opportunity to support our students with the psychology education he had.
Now, he continues to work towards making an impact in our community by teaching at the Chinese Information and Service Center (CISC) as an after school math teacher for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders. He is currently a senior in high school and attending Seattle Central College through the Running Start program. He will be attending the University of Washington in the fall where he plans to major in psychology, with the intent to pursue a PhD afterwards. With a long path ahead of him, he aims to continue teaching and one day become a psychology professor to conduct research that helps us better interact with our communities.
DLEC is grateful to our alumni for their commitment to serving and improving our community!