Each year, VAR, VHDA, and VREEF partner to provide scholarships to real estate students attending George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth, or Virginia Tech universities.

There’s $2,000 allocated to each school. Two of this years three winners come from Virginia Tech; the third is attending GMU. They all deserve congratulations — and don’t be surprised if you hear their names again.

Ellen Zapata of Fairfax; George Mason University

Major: Regional development in public policy

Ellen Zapata is a fourth-year doctoral student at GMU’s School of Public Policy and a third year research assistant for the Center for Regional Analysis. She plans to write her dissertation on the Washington, D.C. real estate economy.

She holds a B.A. from Brown University, and an M.A. from the University of Denver, and served as a policy analyst at the Council of State Governments in Washington for three years.

 

Robert Phillips of Mason Neck; Virginia Tech

Major: Marketing management, Pamplin College of Business

Minors: Real estate, international business

Robert Phillips is interested in the marketing angle of real estate. Besides his work at Virginia Tech, he’s studied at the Center for European Studies and Architecture in Switzerland, and done marketing work and research for firms in Blacksburg and Washington, D.C.

 

Brandt Stitzer of New Kent; Virginia Tech

Major: Finance and accounting, Pamplin College of Business

Minor: Real estate

Brandt Stitzer gets his real estate genes from his parents, who own and lease farmland, commercial property, and residential property from their farm in New Kent.

As part of his studies, Brandt has researched the role appraisers played in the recent financial crisis, comparing it to the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, and has studied the use of other valuation tools including broker price opinions (BPOs) and automated valuation models (AVMs).

He plans to attend law school beginning in the fall of 2010.