PETNA and SPISE – A Proud Partnership

The PETNA Foundation has been proud to sponsor the Caribbean Science Foundation’s SPISE program since its inception in 2012.

SPISE – the Student Program for Innovation in Science and Engineering – was founded by Professor Cardinal Warde and Dr. Dinah Sah to nurture “the Caribbean’s next generation of technology entrepreneurs and leaders in science, engineering and business”.

The program is geared to outstanding students aged 16-18, offering them an intensive hybrid residential/on-line experience based at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill campus, with courses in calculus, physics, biochemistry, entrepreneurship, computer programming, and robotics.

The PETNA Foundation has provided financial support to SPISE since its inception in 2012. Cumulatively, SPISE has now hosted 265 students from 18 Caribbean countries. The PETNA Foundation has sponsored students from around the Caribbean each year – often from Grenada, where PETNA founder Nicholas Brathwaite was born.

Says Dr. Brathwaite, “There is a natural and powerful affinity between SPISE and PETNA, given the Foundation’s commitment to investing in education as a key to achieving sustainable impacts on individuals and communities. This has proven to be an enduring partnership and it’s one in which I take great pride.”

Janice Brathwaite, co-founder of The PETNA Foundation, echoes his sentiment: “Year after year,” she says, “SPISE has delivered an outstanding experience for participants, and the results speak for themselves.”

SPISE alumni have gone on to distinguished universities such as MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Caltech, Columbia, Oxford University, UC London, University of Toronto, McMaster, University of Waterloo, and many other universities in the Caribbean, United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Dr. Dinah Sah and Prof. Cardinal Warde have underscored the importance of PETNA’s support over the years, noting that “The PETNA Foundation was one of our earliest supporters, and has been a real cornerstone for SPISE. PETNA’s support has allowed our very promising young Caribbean scholars to begin to realize their full academic potential and to lay the foundation for impressive achievements at the university level and in their subsequent careers.”

---

Dr. Dinah Sah, Co-Executive Director of the Caribbean Science Foundation, Director of SPISE, and President of CADSTI-New England, has worked in biotechnology for more than 30 years, serving most recently as Chief Scientific Officer for Voyager Therapeutics, and previously with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Biogen, and Signal Pharmaceuticals. She holds a B.S. in biology from MIT and a PhD in neurobiology from Harvard; is a named inventor on more than 40 patents; and has published in numerous prestigious journals, including Nature Medicine and New England Journal of Medicine.

---

Dr. Cardinal Warde, Interim Executive Director of the Caribbean Science Foundation, is Professor Post-Tenure of Electrical Engineering at MIT, and is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on materials, devices and systems for optical information processing and displays. He was a founder of Optron Systems and Radiant Images, holds numerous patents, and has published more than 150 technical papers. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Stevens Institute of Technology, and M.Phil and PhD degrees in physics from Yale, as well as honorary doctorates from University of the West Indies and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.