Laura G. Funderburk earned a Bachelor of Mathematics and received the Terry Fox Gold Medal Award from Simon Fraser University, as well as a Machine Learning Engineering certification from the University of California San Diego. Known to her colleagues and trainees as “Laura The Legend,” she believed strongly in supporting underrepresented communities and volunteered with organizations throughout her adult life. She was equally passionate about sharing knowledge and helping others learn, participating in numerous online workshops and conferences and ultimately authoring Building Natural Language and LLM Pipelines: Building production-grade RAG, tool contracts, and context engineering with Haystack and LangGraph.
Laura’s commitment to learning and mentorship was shared by her former colleague, Alecia Vogel, a self-taught software developer who worked alongside Laura at Cybera. After leaving university in 2016, Alecia built a career in software spanning education, artificial intelligence, healthcare, and, most recently, aviation technology. Along the way, she has also taught and mentored students ranging from youth to PhD candidates. Now preparing to return to her own studies, she understands firsthand that the path to higher education does not always follow a traditional timeline.
In memory of Laura and inspired by the impact she had on those around her, Alecia and the Gutierrez-Funderburk family established the Funderburk & Vogel Data Pathways Scholarship. The scholarship supports new and returning students pursuing studies in data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning, mathematics, statistics, or computer science, with a focus on students who demonstrate financial need, community involvement, and a desire to use their education to positively impact their communities.
It is our hope that the scholarship will carry Laura’s legacy forward, supporting students who want to learn, grow, and make a difference in their communities.
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