Five students will attend the Gemological Institute of America’s School of Business through special scholarships awarded by the Institute.

The scholarships were allocated to five of the 56 applicants who demonstrated the most scholarly ability and financial need, GIA said. They represent five different nations. Sonja Pupkova of Macedonian, Lalitha Selvarasan of Chicago, and Sandra Cooke-Locken of Alberta, Canada, will have their entire tuition in the GIA School of Business funded. Two partial School of Business scholarships were awarded to Petar Petrovic of Switzerland and Adriana Garcia Garrido of Mexico City.

They will all have the option of completing the program online or at GIA’s Robert Mouawad Campus in Carlsbad, Calif.

The Institute created a special allocation from the annual Richard T. Liddicoat Scholarship Program to fund two of the three full scholarships. Financial backing was also provided by the matching gift donor, St. Vincent Jewelry Center of Los Angeles. GIA founded the third full scholarship in honor of Jeffrey W. Comment, late former chairman and CEO of Helzberg Diamonds. The two partial scholarships were established by Jhaveri Diamond Corporation for the On Campus School of Business program.

For more information about the GIA School of Business, visit www.gia.edu, or call 760-603-4001.

JCK