06/02/2026
For the ❤️ of 🍕 with our 2026 Pizza Scholarship Winners!
As part of our celebration in March, , , , and Christy Alia (), founder and host of Women’s Pizza Month, once again came together to award scholarships to five inspiring women pursuing their next chapter in pizza at a multi-day intensive Master Pizza Seminar at The Pizza University.
THE WINNERS!
🍕 Maria Rivers –
Maria has spent years developing a line of functional food pizzas focused on more fiber, more vegetables, and zero compromise on flavor. Using her catering business, Rio’s Woodfire, as the engine, she hopes to bring the line to wholesale after nearly 30 years in pizza.
🍕 Rosalie Soto –
Growing up in Brooklyn, pizza was always part of Rosalie’s life, but four years of high school in Florida showed her just how irreplaceable New York pizza really is. Now a pizzaiola at Traze Pizza, one of the only women-owned pizzerias in New York City, she makes hundreds of pan pizzas a week and dreams of helping grow Traze to a second location.
🍕 Jeanine Boyers
Jeanine is a home cook in Sacramento who makes sourdough pizza from a 15-year-old starter and bakes in an outdoor oven. For her, pizza represents community. She envisions intimate pizza and sourdough classes at home that eventually grow into a shared community kitchen for cottage food professionals.
🍕 Suzanna Diana Avila – / cielospizza.com
Growing up in poverty, pizza was an affordable and accessible way for Suzanna to feel connection and belonging. Through her pop-up and catering brand Cielo’s Pizza, it has become a source of financial independence and purpose, as she builds a business rooted in opportunity and community.
🍕 Amy Elizabeth Connors – / quailstreet.co
Amy founded Quail Street to give home cooks and independent grocers a better option than mass-produced dough. She scaled her sourdough dough through local Utah retailers and is now developing dry pizza mixes using whole grains and regional flours to expand her impact.
Please join us in congratulating this year’s winners and supporting the incredible work they’re building through pizza. Like, follow, and celebrate the love ❤️🍕