In Memory of Whitney Allen

Whitney Allen, our beloved daughter, sister, granddaughter, and friend, passed away on June 21, 2026. She was 22 years old.

Whitney was born on May 28, 2004, in Palo Alto, California, the second child of Mark and Jennifer Allen. She came into the world in the Chinese year of the Monkey, and spent the next twenty-two years living up to it. Before she could walk she was already climbing: out of her crib, up the staircase railings, and best of all, tied into a rope at the climbing gym, grinning down at the rest of us. As soon as she could talk she figured out how to make people laugh, and she never stopped brightening the days of everyone around her.

Whitney never did anything halfway. Whatever she went after, she went after all the way. In the pool she was fearless and tough, a water polo player good enough to make the Stanford Junior Olympics team and to play for Menlo-Atherton High School, where she graduated in 2022. She brought that same drive to school, applying early decision to the University of Miami's Business School and making it happen.

Miami is where she found what she wanted to do with her life. The summer before her junior year she took an internship in AI, working alongside her father. She came back to school and added the newly created minor in AI in Business Technology on top of her double major in Business Analytics and Marketing. The University of Miami was ahead of almost every school in the country on AI. It trusted its students to use the new tools instead of banning them, and no one made more of that trust than Whitney. She never used AI to cut corners. She used it to learn more deeply and to do work beyond her years, and from then on she earned high A's in every class she took. The next summer she interned at Royal Caribbean, where her managers told her she was working at the level of someone who had been there ten years. She graduated magna cum laude in the spring of 2026, part of the first class to earn Miami's AI business degree.

As much as Whitney accomplished, what she cared about most was the people in her life. More than anything, she loved being with her family and friends. She paid attention. She could tell from across a room when something was wrong with you, and she would cross the room to reach you. She had a way of making whoever she was with feel like they mattered most in the world. That is what we will remember about her first.

Whitney is survived by her father, Dr. Mark Allen; her mother, Jennifer Sollman Allen; her step-mother, Venetia Allen; her sister Hailey and step-brother Makoa; and her grandparents, Barbara Felder, George and Maureen Sollman, and Dr. Kenneth and Elizabeth Allen.

The Whitney Allen Endowed AI Scholarship

Whitney showed our family what AI can do in good hands. It lifted her up and showed her how much she was capable of. We want that belief to outlive her.

So we are creating the Whitney Allen Endowed AI Scholarship at the University of Miami Business School. It is a permanent endowment: gifts are invested, never spent down, and the fund will award scholarships every year to undergraduate students majoring or minoring in AI. Every year, for as long as the university stands, there will be a Whitney Allen Scholar. Someone who gets a boost. Someone who gets love, because of her.

We chose Miami because Miami was brave. It embraced AI early and trusted its students with it, and Whitney thrived because of that trust. We are proud to build this with the school that gave her so much confidence and joy.

Every gift, of any size, becomes part of the permanent fund. If this scholarship helps even one student leave Miami with the skill and the heart that Whitney had, it will have done exactly what she would have wanted.

Her Celebration of Life

Whitney's Celebration of Life was held on June 27, 2026. You can watch the recording and read her father's eulogy at www.whitneyallen.org, where her story continues.

Share your memories

Please share your memories of Whitney, with photos, videos, or stories at www.whitneyallen.org.

Everything else fades. Love is the only thing that lasts, and Whitney gave hers everywhere she went. Thank you for keeping her love alive forever.