Three college students each will receive $2,000 as winners of SeniorAdvisor.com’s third annual Future of Assisted Living scholarship program.

Katherine Gratton, Christina Pan and Crystal Schaeffer were chosen from almost 700 students enrolled at accredited two-year colleges or four-year university programs in the United States and Canada. They were selected based on essays answering the question: “How can your major of study improve the lives of seniors in assisted living facilities in your town?”

Pan is a computer science major at Stanford University in Stanford, CA, where she is focusing on artificial intelligence. Her essay explored on how artificial intelligence could benefit assisted living residents by monitoring critical health signals and alerting staff to accidents. Pan also has personal experience as an emergency service provider for seniors.

Gratton studies music at the University of Ottawa in Ontario. She wrote about the use of music therapy to combat depression among older adults.

Schaeffer’s essay was about how her studies in occupational therapy at Saint Catherine University in St. Paul, MN, have helped her discover the healing effects of OT on older adults.

SeniorAdvisor.com has posted the winning essays on its website.