Sara Dustova has been named one of five recipients of the 2026 Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship for Hamilton County. The Westfield High School senior was selected from a competitive field of applicants committed to making an impact in their school and community. Dustova is grateful that the scholarship will allow her to pursue a degree in Computer Science while she continues her efforts enabling female students to see what can be possible.
The Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship program is a collaboration of community foundations in each Indiana county and the Lilly Endowment, Inc. It provides tuition, university fees, and up to $900 per year for books and required equipment, easing financial concerns and reducing the need to work multiple jobs while in school. Applying for the scholarship is a multi-step process and is initiated by school counselors.
Academics, community involvement, essays, character
recommendations, leadership and the ability to communicate are all considered.
“The application process was long and felt overwhelming at times. It started with an email from the Counseling Center at the beginning of the school year, and from there I worked closely with my counselors on essays and interviews. I then had a Zoom panel interview in October with the Hamilton County Community Foundation where many different people asked me questions. They were all kind and very welcoming, beginning each of their questions with a compliment on my previous answers,” Dustova says.
“As time passed and I didn’t hear anything, doubt began to creep in, and I started wondering if all the work had paid off. Then in December, I was sent a pass to go to the counselors’ office to answer a quick question about block scheduling. I was surprised with cameras and a mob of people including the superintendent. They told me I got the scholarship, and I called my mom about the exciting news,” Dustova says.
Dustova has lived in Westfield since she was in eighth grade and originally came to Indiana from the country Tajikistan at the age of four when her mother was pursuing a master’s degree from Ball State University in Muncie. After a brief stay back in her home country where she lived with her grandmother, she returned at age six and later settled in the Fishers area. It was during this time that she discovered her passion for technology.
When Dustova became a student at Westfield High School, she had a desire to introduce tech education to all her peers, especially females. As a sophomore, she started the school’s Computer Science Club. The following year, she launched a chapter of the international nonprofit organization Girls Who Code and was elected President of the Computer Science Honor Society.
“I remember the day of the first meeting for the Computer Science Club. I was starting it all alone. It was just me and Mr. Comer, my club sponsor. I looked on the SchoolCore app and saw that only two people had signed up. Mrs. Gibbs said, ‘Just do your best.’ I started talking about it in every class and asking people if they would like to come. In the end, 25 people came.
Today there are 70 people in the club. It’s incredibly exciting to create something from the ground up and then watch it come to life,” Dustova says.
In the summer of 2024, Dustova founded Noor, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to bring access to technology and digital education opportunities to women in Tajikistan villages. In the summer of 2025, she traveled to four villages and the capital Dushanbe as part of a national research project, gathering data for a paper on Tajik women’s digital literacy. The interactions she had there further strengthened her dedication to make technology education available to all.
“I was talking with a girl in her room, and she shared so many goals and dreams with me. She felt that, given her circumstances, those dreams might never be possible and that her future had already been decided for her. That conversation deeply shaped my future goals and strengthened my commitment to creating more opportunities for girls like her. It is important that I thrive not just for myself but for these girls as well. I want to provide them the same opportunities that I have, and I certainly don’t want to see the same sadness I saw in her eyes in any other girl,” Dustova says.
“There are strong women in my family. My grandmother left her small village to study at the state university in the capital of Tajikistan, and my mom came to the U.S. from across the globe to pursue her graduate degree. My future and goals are not simply my own but an extension of theirs. I am not building my path from scratch but from the sacrifices of those who came before me. I feel like with all the resources we have at hand, there is no choice but to take advantage of them; it’s harder not to,” Dustova says.
Dustova shares that her decision to attend Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology was in part due to her admiration for Tiffany Trusty. Dustova met Trusty during her IT internship at Eli Lilly, where Trusty was a Director of Product Management. Trusty was one of the first group of women admitted to Rose Hulman Institute of Technology and the second woman to graduate from the school. In addition, Trusty is the current president of the nonprofit Women & Hi Tech.
“I am so grateful to the welcoming community of Westfield and the many people who have got me to this point; without them my goals would have stayed dreams. No matter what advice you are given, you never learn until you go through the experience yourself. You don’t have to fit in or conform, and you don’t have to look or act a certain way. What truly matters is who you are on the inside,” Dustova says.
