Six Indian-origin students have made it to the 2024 Class of Distinguished New Americans and each of them has won the $90,000 fellowship grant for up to two years. Thus, they have entered the prestigious cohort of Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows, including Dr Vivek Murthy, the first US Surgeon General of Indian descent who played a crucial role in leading national response to epidemic outbreaks, and healthcare leader Nirav Shah who worked for US CDC.

Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship, since its establishment in 1998, has supported nearly 800 New Americans – immigrants and children of immigrants – for their educational pursuits in USA. As immigrants themselves, Paul and Daisy Soros believe in the transformative impact of a single opportunity for talented individuals seeking to fulfil their potential in the land of American Dream. Every year, the merit-based graduate school program provides $90,000 fellowship grants to 30 students of various ethnic origins, with ‘potential to make meaningful contributions to the United States.’

PC: Pdsoros.org

Akshay Swaminathan from New Jersey

The $90,000 fellowship grant will support Akshay Swaminathan’s Ph.D. studies in biomedical data science at Stanford University. He has developed several data-driven tools, including a suicide detection system. The budding data scientist has published 40 research papers and co-authored a book on applying quantitative methods to address healthcare-related issues. He has also built a primary care clinic in Bolivia. His current research focuses on the role of AI in healthcare.

Being a language instructor and author, Akshay Swaminathan founded ‘Start Speaking’ platform to help language learners. He led ESL programs for Chinese immigrants and published 5 textbooks. He founded ‘Start Speaking’ platform to help language learners. As a future physician, he aims to bolster the healthcare system in marginalized regions. The third-generation Indian American born in a Tamil family practices Carnatic music as a way of nurturing his cultural roots.

Shubhayu Bhattacharya from Los Angeles

Kolkata-born Shubhayu Bhattacharya noticed common healthcare challenges in his community across India and California. Deeper research and a quest for solutions led him to found a startup, Auditus Technologies, to roll out hearing devices for adults suffering from dementia. He was pursuing a double degree in biomedical engineering and applied mathematics and statistics from Hopkins University at the time.

Later, he invented the first computational bedside system to monitor and classify motor functions in traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients. His Ph.D. thesis on AI methods for effective TBI treatment was published in leading health journals, and he was invited to deliver a keynote at international conferences. An MD student at Harvard, Shubhayu wants to become a physician-engineer in neurocritical or neurosurgical care. He aims to harness big data to improve the effectiveness & accessibility of brain injury care.

Malavika Kannan from Pennsylvania

One of the $90,0000 Paul & Daisy Soros fellowship winners in 2024, Malavika Kannan will fund her Master’s program in Fine Arts (Fiction) with the grant. Currently a senior at Stanford University, Malavika is a published author of ‘All the Yellow Suns’, a coming-of-age novel narrating the emotional journey of a queer Indian American girl as she explores her identity, engages in activism, and finds love. Her fictional pieces surrounding the themes of identity, culture and politics have been published in The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Refinery29, and The San Francisco Chronicle. She aspires to be a novelist and a professor of literature.

Keerthana Hogirala from Chicago

Keerthana’s family moved to the US from Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh when was 6. Her family endured a prolonged period of uncertainty during the wait for naturalization. The experience motivated Keerthana to make the most of the opportunity available to her amid the green card backlog. After graduating in neuroscience, she became a special education teacher at DC Public Schools.

She was instrumental in leading DC schools’ response to COVID-19 pandemic. She gradually overhauled operations with her innovative approaches. Her subsequent role as chief of staff put her in charge of the DC schools’ multi-year digital transformation initiative. She earned a full-tuition merit scholarship for MBA and 90% tuition merit scholarship for MPP. Keerthana is now pursuing an MBA and MPP dual degree at the University of Chicago. Her future goal is to address pressing public needs and drive social development in underprivileged communities.

Ananya Agustin Malhotra from Georgia

Ananya Agustin Malhotra of Indian and Filipino descent developed a deep interest in global history and international relations owing to her multiethnic background. She graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University. She was a Rhodes Scholar while pursuing an MPhil in modern European history at Oxford University. Ananya actively advocates for women rights as well as peaceful foreign policies with focus on nuclear disarmament and risk reduction.

She has authored/co-authored several policy briefs. Her research papers, writings on world history, international law and order, security, peace and other works were published in popular media such as Global histories, American Oxonian, and Oxford Review of Books. She has effectively collaborated with her alma matter – Princeton University – on projects of science and global security. She is currently enrolled in the Juris Doctor Program at Yale University.

Aayush Karan from Wisconsin

A summa cum laude graduate pursuing Ph.D. in Quantum Science and Engineering at Harvard University, Aayush Karan has been exceptional at academics since childhood. His research skills are remarkable too. From his high school research in low-dimensional topology to undergraduate research involving application of mathematical concepts to solve scientific problems, his work earned him several rewards, including Davidson fellowship and Barry Goldwater Scholarship.

Aayush inherited his passion for scientific research from his parents, who moved to USA from India for advanced research in cancer biology. In future, he aims to contribute towards safe and effective utilization of AI technology. If not research, he immerses himself in creative pursuits, exploring various mediums of storytelling, from music to writing.

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After having recently got two Indian-origin CEOs, Sridhar Ramaswamy and Dhivya Suryadevara, America selected the top winner of Regeneron Science Talent Search 2024 from the Indian immigrants community. 17-year-old Achyuta Rajaram from New Hampshire won America’s Junior Nobel (as the STEM competition is popularly known) and bagged a whopping cash prize $250,000 as the most promising scientist of tomorrow. This is the second consecutive win for Indian Diaspora in the United States after Neel Moudgal from Michigan emerged the top winner in the same competition in 2023.

PC: Societyforscience.org | Achyuta Rajaram (left), Arnav Chakravarthy (right)

Achyuta Rajaram, a high schooler with dreamy eyes and unkempt hair, has been awarded as the first place winner for developing an automatic method to identify which parts of a computer model are responsible for ‘thinking’ and ‘decision making’ when it comes to interpreting images. In machine learning and artificial intelligence, the algorithms of a computer model work by certain patterns in data to respond to queries. His thought-provoking research can be likened to a deep dive into the human thought process, understanding which neurons in the brain respond to stimuli in the form of a picture.

“Achyuta’s research improved our ability to discover what computer models ‘think’ when they analyze a photo and which parts of their ‘mechanical brains’ are contributing to the decision making. For example, when a model identifies a car in a photo, does it first identify wheels and use this to identify ‘car-ness,’ or does it look for something else?” notes Society for Science, an American nonprofit that promotes STEM education programs and competitions. His project could help make computational algorithms “more effective, fair and safe”.

Indian American Achyuta Rajaram attributes his interest in computer science and coding to his parents, Nivedita Chevvakula and Rajaram Ramaswamy Kumaraswamy, who gave him an exposure to emerging technologies from a young age. Jazz drumming, teaching chess strategy, and organizing in-house tournaments are among his favorite activities beyond computers. He co-heads the physics, chemistry and chess clubs at Phillips Exeter Academy. After graduation, he plans to major in computer science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and continue his research in Artificial Intelligence.

Arnav Chakravarthy among top 10 winners at 2024 Regeneron Science Talent Search

The other Indian-origin teen honored at the 2024 Regeneron Science Talent Search is Arnav Chakravarty from Sunnyvale, California. 18-year-old Arnav made it to the top 10 winners and took home $50,000 cash prize for his research that may help improve therapies for age-related human diseases like Alzheimer’s. He intensively studied how certain immune system cells known as macrophages regenerate themselves in an ageing body. Arnav Chakravarty’s research is based on recent studies that discovered that macrophage cells may be replenished by the bone marrow in aging humans

Interestingly, Arnav is cofounder and CEO of SciLynk Inc., an AI-driven startup for scientists and researchers. Nasdaq’s Entrepreneurial Center selected him as a ‘Face of Entrepreneurship’ in 2021 out of 30,000 young entrepreneurs across the globe. At the same time, he is interning at Stanford Medicine where he is leading a cancer research project. He is also the state secretary of the California Future Business Leaders of America, according to Society for Science.

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Indeed, America is the cradle for Indian prodigies and the incubator of their dreams. 16-year-old Pranjali Awasthi wearing eyeglasses appears like an ordinary Indian girl unless she introduces herself as an innovator and founder. Unlike Indian-origin business leaders who climbed up a ladder to the C-suite of American conglomerates, Pranjali made headlines as her own boss when she was 15 in 2022. With her disruptive idea, she has ventured into the AI-driven business landscape where two giants – Google and Microsoft – have locked horns to establish their supremacy over artificial intelligence.

While most Indian-origin kids of her age (under 15) were vying for the Scripps National Spelling Bee trophy, Pranjali Awasthi was looking to disrupt the online search landscape dominated by Google. In the process, she took the entrepreneurial plunge to found her AI startup, Delv.AI, which is currently valued at over $12 million. With Delv.AI having celebrated its second anniversary, Pranjali leads a team of 10 technology enthusiasts and helms such key departments as coding, operations, and customer service.

PC: Pranjali Awasthi | Linkedin (AI generated)

Pranjali Awasthi’s Delv.AI is a new age search platform that streamlines the data extraction process from the sea of online content. It employs artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to understand queries and present specific information in the form of interactive charts and maps to facilitate better understanding. It also generates summaries of uploaded pdfs and provides valuable insights into the data. Her AI-driven innovation is a boon for researchers in the current era of information overload.

One of the few youngest members in the elite club of prodigious entrepreneurs, Pranjali owes her passion for technology to her father, a computer engineer, who moved to Miami, Florida from India when she was 11. Interestingly, the tender age of 7, when kids practice phonics, was her threshold of learning coding in India. With easy access to computer science and math programs at school level in the US, her passion intensified for emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Within two years of their living in Miami, she got to intern in machine learning projects at Florida International University when OpenAI’s GPT3 was making waves as a ground-breaking innovation. This captured her imagination, and thus, a billion-dollar business idea hit the latent entrepreneur in her. There was no dearth of motivation for her at home and beyond to nurture her interest in emerging technologies while juggling regular school work.

On successful completion of the internship, Pranjali Awasthi felt more inclined to develop a disruptive business model harnessing AI technology. She joined a 12-week AI startup accelerator program, Miami Hack Week, run by Lucy Guo and Dave Fontenot, the co-founders of Backend Capital, a venture capital firm in San Francisco. With unwavering support of her parents (unlike most Indian parents opposing the idea of taking a break from school), she put her high school studies on hold and dedicated her time to working on her business idea for an efficient data extraction process.

Pranjali, who has been a coder since the age of 7, developed her own AI platform and founded the startup, Delv.AI, in January 2022. It was first launched on Product Hunt, a popular American website displaying tech innovations. Eventually, an opportunity to showcase her product at the Miami Tech Week event came her way. It proved to be pivotal in propelling her startup to new highs and brought investors to her door. Demonstrating her mission and vision for Delv.AI with conviction, she has been able to raise $450,000 from angel investors. And her journey continues….

This story is part of our continued effort to give a shoutout to achievements of Young Indians in America. Travel Beats is a subsidiary of IndianEagle.com, a most trusted air-ticketing partner of Indians abroad. Best airline deals from Indian Eagle make travel between USA and India cheaper, irrespective of routes.

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The search for exceptional young talent across America often results in a winning moment for Indian-origin prodigies, and in turn, a matter of pride for the vast Indian community. After 4 Indian American kids emerged as the nation’s brightest students in the 2023 Junior Innovators Challenge, 9-year-old Preesha Chakraborty is named one of the world’s brightest students by the prestigious Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY). And her achievement at the start of 2024 rings the bell for yet another remarkable year for America’s Indian-origin kids taking part in various national-level competitions, from STEM to spelling to beauty pageants.

PC: NDTV

Preesha Chakraborty now joins the meritorious club of Indian American child prodigies such as Natasha Perianayagam, Samedha Saxena, Aaryaveer Kochhar, Advay Misra, and Vihaan Mane, who have been adjudged as the world’s brightest students by Johns Hopkins in recent years. Her cognitive abilities shined through in the above-grade-level tests such as SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test), ACT (American College Testing), and School and College Ability Test (SCAT) conducted as part of the CTY Talent Search 2023. The 3^rd grader from Fremont, California, was among the 16,000 students who appeared for the esteemed CTY Test from across 90 countries.

Preesha’s impressive score in the verbal and quantitative sections is on par with the 99th percentile of advanced Grade 5 performances. This catapulted her to the coveted list of brightest students and earned her the Grand Honors distinction, which qualifies her for more than 250 CTY’s online and on-campus summer programs for 2-12 graders in various academic areas such as mathematics, computer programming, chemistry, physics, reading, and writing.

Johns Hopkins recognition adds a grand feather in her tiny cap. Her Indian-origin parents recognized young Preesha’s exceptional learning abilities and encouraged her to take part in various talent tests and competitions, including NNAT (Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test), which became a launchpad for her Mensa Foundation membership.

At the age of 6, the young mastermind made an envious entry into the Mensa Foundation as one of its youngest members. The renowned foundation offers life-time membership for the intellectually gifted who score 98th percentile or higher in an approved intelligence test. Apart from academics, traveling, hiking and mixed martial arts interest Preesha Chakraborty from Fremont.

The Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth identifies promising students and provides a genuine index to their academic potential. Around 30% of students qualify for High Honors or Grand Honors/SET distinction from among tens of thousands of participants every year. The alumni of this renowned organization in the field of education, include Rhodes Scholars, MacArthur Fellows, and the founders of Facebook and Google.

The origin of the Center for Talented Youth dates back to the late 70s when a seventh grader from Baltimore had finished all mathematical lessons one could have at school. It prompted a professor of psychology from Johns Hopkins to design unique grade-based academic assessment programs for talented kids. According to Amy Shelton, CTY’s executive director, recognizing their curiosity and capacity for learning motivates them to pursue their passions, enrich their knowledge, connect with other young scholars, broaden their perspectives and achieve milestones in their respective communities and beyond.

This story is part of our continued effort to give a shoutout to achievements of Young Indians in America. Travel Beats is a subsidiary of IndianEagle.com, a most trusted air-ticketing partner of Indians abroad. Indian Eagle flight deals have a proven track record of making USA to India travel cheaper throughout the year.

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Today’s Indian-origin kids of immigrants and non-immigrants are the future of America. Through every STEM competition, they testify to their collective talent for the future growth and prosperity of the United States where they are nurtured as innovators, researchers, and scientists. Be it Regeneron Science Talent Search or Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge, young Indian American minds continue to shine.

The Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge (JIC), America’s only middle school STEM competition affiliated to Society for Science, saw the best of 30 finalists who were selected out of the 10% of 65,000 middle-schoolers through several science and engineering fairs across the country. While 16 Indian American kids made it to the list of finalists at the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge 2023, four of them including Shanya Gill made the cut as winners. The winners are counted among America’s brightest middle schoolers.

PC: Society for Science | Shanya Gill, Maya Gandhi, Keshvee Sekhda (from left to right)

Shanya Gill from California wins $25,000 ASCEND Award 

A sixth grader from Stratford School, Shanya Gill won the first prize – the Thermo Fisher Scientific ASCEND (Aspiring Scientists Cultivating Exciting New Discoveries) award – and bagged $25,000 for her fire detection system. She developed an early fire detection system consisting of a wall-mounted thermal camera and a Raspberry Pi (a small single-board computer). It uses thermal imaging to detect unattended fires and triggers text alerts when a heat source is left unattended for more than 10 minutes.

Unlike conventional smoke detectors that send delayed alerts (usually after fire rapidly spreads and emits large quantities of smoke), Shanya Gill’s early fire detection system warns of a house fire at an initial stage, thus facilitating a rapid emergency action to save lives, prevent casualties, and avert property damage. Her prototype fire detection system has shown promising results and is accurate 97% of the time. Shanya aspires to become a biomedical engineer and hopes to make a difference in this world by combining her ‘love for biology’ and ‘passion for innovation’.

Shanya Gill of San Jose felt the need for a more efficient, accurate and affordable fire alarm system when a fire accident reduced a restaurant near her home to ashes in 2022. She started working on her idea of employing thermal cameras for early fire detection. She connected the thermal cameras to a tiny computer and programmed it in such a way that it identifies people as warm, moving objects and heat sources like gas burners as hot, static objects. During the trials, her device accurately detected humans 98% of the time and heat sources 97% of the time.

Not only her research project, but her leadership, collaboration and critical thinking skills impressed the panel of judges during the Finals Week challenge.

Other Indian American Winners at Thermo Fisher JIC Challenge 2023

14-year-old Keshvee Sekhda from Georgia bagged the $10,000 Broadcom Coding with Commitment Award for her early cancer diagnosis that demonstrates her commitment to improving community well-being. A resident of Sugar Hill, a suburb of Atlanta; she developed the smartphone app IdentiCan with her teammate Nyambura Sallinen to help people identify the likelihood of having lung, skin and breast cancer. They fed a machine learning algorithm with data in the form of photos, health scan images and audio clips for effective diagnosis. They are now looking to collaborate with doctors for further improvement of the app.

8^th grader Maya Gandhi from Anaheim, California won the $10,000 DoD STEM Talent Award for her research on optimizing energy output of plant microbial fuel cells, at the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge. Driven by her profound interest in sustainable energy sources, her research is aimed at minimizing the world’s dependence on fossil fuels that account for more than 90% of harmful carbon emissions. Maya Gandhi experimented using different substances for anode in plant microbial fuel cells that generate sustainable energy from living plants and microbes in the soil.

13-year-old Adyant Bhavsar from San Jose, California, received the $10,000 Lemelson Award for Invention. An avid environmentalist, Adyant created an affordable and eco-friendly version of a triboelectric nanogenerator to support sustainable energy supply to disaster monitoring systems installed at wildfire-prone areas throughout California. This device converts mechanical energy generated by two touching/sliding objects into electrical energy. Apart from science and sustainability, he’s into writing, speech and debate. The 7th grader is also a published author with two fictional storybooks to his credit.

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Indian-origin teens are stealing the show and having crowning moments in the United States, whether a competition tests their beauty or brains. While 6 Indian-origin finalists are vying for America’s Young Scientist Title 2023, 16-year-old UmaSofia Srivastava won the crown of Miss Teen USA 2023. Her crowning moment was a moment of joy, a moment of glory, a moment of pride for the Indian Diaspora in America. It warmed their hearts as they beheld the coveted crown being passed down from the previous year’s Indian American winner Faron Medhi to her successor UmaSofia.

PC: Instagram.com/umasofias

Like the ‘Miss World America 2021’ Shree Saini, UmaSofia with her beauty and intelligence, beat other 50 contestants from across the States and the District of Columbia at the national-level event in Nevada. She represented New Jersey as Miss New Jersey Teen 2023; the title she bagged early this year was her entry to the grand finale. She is not only the first New Jersey teen but also the first Mexican Indian to have earned the ‘Miss Teen USA 2023’fame.

Her win on the American soil where actress Priyanka Chopra was bullied for her brown complexion in her school days is a bold act of defiance to the American standards of beauty. She is a lot more than her age and beauty. the Miss Teen USA 2023 title winner is a staunch humanitarian. She believes in ethnic diversity, cultural inclusivity, and societal equality. She is a cofounder of the Diversity and Inclusion Campaign at her school, the Academy of St. Elizabeth. She initiates meaningful debates on contemporary topics among young minds as the president of a debate club.

Inspired by changemakers in the US and other parts of the world, UmaSofia Srivastava works with the Lotus Petal Foundation for the welfare of underprivileged children in India. She is associated with several education, nutrition and healthcare initiatives for their holistic development. As an education activist, she collected and donated over 1000 books to the Bridge of Books Foundation to extend the wealth of knowledge for economically disadvantaged kids in New Jersey.

America’s Miss Teen USA 2023, UmaSofia Srivastava has several feathers in her cap. She is a published author with the title “The White Jaguar” to her credit. The metaphorical title is based on her nickname – Little Jaguar (given by her father). The book is a celebration of her unique experience as a half-Indian and a half-Mexican. The book that depicts the journey of a little white jaguar from being hesitant about its unnatural color to ultimately finding the strength to embrace its unique identity resonates with immigrants of color. She hopes to inspire them to unapologetically be their true selves.

UmaSofia, a young beauty with brains and ideals, aspires to become a United Nations ambassador. She believes in self-worth and spreads messages of positivity as well as empowerment through her blog, That’s Fan Behavior. Elucidating her goal to ‘inspire people to be their true selves’ through both her ‘achievements and mistakes’, she states, “taking a risk is never the worst thing; not knowing what could’ve happened if you did, is.”

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The annual 3M Young Scientist Challenge that recognizes and rewards innovative minds in the United States is back with 10 finalists including 6 Indian Americans. Kids of Indian origin have time and again shined in the competition for their novel ideas and scientific innovations. From 2012 until 2020, America’s Top Young Scientist title has gone to 6 Indian-origin kids including Deepika Kurup (2012), Sahil Doshi (2014), Maanasa Mendu (2016), Gitanjali Rao (2017), Rishab Jain (2018), and Anika Chebrolu (2020).

Unfortunately, the Indian immigrant community did not have good luck with the ‘America’s Top Young Scientist’ title in the past two years. Hence, all eyes are on the below six Indian-origin kids in the grand finale of Discovery 3M Young Scientist Challenge 2023. We hope, like the Scripps National Spelling Bee 2023 trophy, this coveted title will go to the Indian Diaspora in USA this year. The winner of 3M Young Scientist Challenge 2023 will be announced at the culminating event scheduled in October.  

PC: Youngscientistlab.com | Indian Eagle

3M Young Scientist Ishaan Iyer, Los Angeles 

The inventor of the Tactile Electronic Braille Display Device 2.0, Ishaan Iyer is the youngest of all ten finalists of Discovery 3M Young Scientist Challenge 2023. He designed a cost-effective device to simplify the labor-intensive method of Braille writing with a slate and stylus. His model encodes the English alphabet into Braille language and aids the visually impaired in reading the Braille Alphabet easily. Ishan Iyer, who mentions a reusable rocket as his favorite invention of the last 100 years, hopes to be a rocket scientist working on building economical and eco-friendly spacecraft.

3M Young Scientist Adhip Maitra, Florida

Have you ever heard of ptosis? It’s a condition that causes eyelids to droop abnormally, sometimes even blocking the vision. Ptosis can be a result of aging, but most people do not even realize that they have this condition until it turns worse. This, along with the fact that it can be a symptom of 48 diseases and disorders, inspired Adhip Maitra to develop a computer program for early detection of ptosis. According to him, it helps with the timely detection of any serious underlying conditions that generally go undetected until the final stage. The 8th grader from Jackson Heights Middle School in Oviedo, Florida employed deep learning and other technologies to develop this computer program.

3M Young Scientist Shruti Sivaraman, Texas

One of the six Indian Americans named in the top 10 finalists of the 3M Young Scientist Challenge 2023 is Shruti Sivaraman from Austin, Texas. The young app developer created an application to diagnose Diabetic Retinopathy (DR), a vision-threatening complication plaguing the diabetic population. Her smart app detects Diabetic Retinopathy by examining the retinal images unlike the conventional dilated eye exam that involves the use of dilation drops. Shruti is a seventh grader studying at Canyon Vista Middle School and she aims to become a computer engineer.

3M Young Scientist Anish Kosaraju, California

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2021 lists cybersecurity failure among the highest possible risks of this decade. San Jose-based Anish Kosaraju’s invention that secured him a place in the 3M Young Scientist Challenge 2023 finalists is centered on developing a new method powered by machine learning for enhanced cybersecurity. He developed a model to find the legitimacy of login attempts and prevent the cyber takeovers of accounts that aren’t protected by multi factor authentication. Anish Kosaraju wishes to see himself as a cybersecurity expert in future.

3M Young Scientist Shripriya Kalbhavi, California 

A grade-8 student at Joaquin Miller Middle School, Shripriya Kalbhavi from San Jose introduced EasyBZ microneedle patches as an affordable solution for painless medication. An active form of drug delivery, her microneedle patches, Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction-automated, enable the administration of customized doses of medication into the body. Passionate about scientific inventions, especially in the field of medication, Shripriya aspires to become a neurosurgeon. She is also a mathlete and an active participant in math competitions such as Math Kangaroo and AMC8.

3M Young Scientist Anisha Dhoot, Portland 

One of the talented Indian American teens competing for ‘America’s Top Young Scientist 2023‘ title is Anisha Dhoot, whose environment-focused project for building a sustainable planet promotes utilization of kelp seaweed to improve soil nutrition and also fight climate change. Anisha Dhoot aspires to become a STEM professional and work on improving the life of people on Earth. “Girls are underrepresented in the STEM field in both high school/college level and later in professional careers and I want to reverse that trend,” says the 14-year-old budding scientist from Portland.

Discovery Education’s 3M Young Scientist Challenge is a prestigious STEM competition that provides a stage for America’s middle school students in 5 to 8 grades to demonstrate their ideas and solutions to tackle real-world issues. The ‘America’s Top Young Scientist’ title winner will earn a $25K grand prize while all the 10 finalists get $1000 each along with an opportunity to participate in an exclusive summer mentorship program with a 3M scientist.

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Parents should save money for their daughters’ higher education rather than for their wedding. This reformative thought is gaining momentum in Indian society where fathers start dreaming of daughters’ grand wedding and saving for the big day right from the cradling of baby girls. Some parents are exceptions, like Kalpana Chawla’s father. He had taken his daughter to a flying club and requested a pilot to give her a ride. This marked the beginning of her epic journey to having become a legendary astronaut in 1995 when there was no “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” campaign by the government of India.

The parents of India’s youngest commercial pilot, Sakshi Kochhar, invested in their daughter’s dream of flying high to the height of 35,000 feet. On 30 May 2023, she celebrated her 18^th birthday and her feat of earning a commercial pilot license. Interestingly, she broke the record of Maitri Patel from Gujarat. Maitri, when 19, became the youngest civil pilot in 2022 and broke the record of Ayesha Aziz from Kashmir. Ayesha Aziz took to skies with her pilot license at the age of 21.

PC: Republicworld.com (left) | TribuneIndia.com (right)

Sakshi, who is now the youngest civil pilot of the world’s second populous nation, made headlines once again on Father’s Day 2023 as she made a wish to give back Rs 70 lakh that her parents spent on her training in India and America. It is nearly impossible for middle-class Indian families to afford lakhs of rupees for fulfilling their children’s career dreams. However, Sakshi’s parents poured out their savings for her training in civil aviation. Indeed, it is financially and psychologically draining for the middle-income group. Sakshi feels indebted to not only her parents, but also grandparents.

Multi-talented Sakshi is from a small town in Himachal Pradesh, where the richest Indian American billionaire – cyber tycoon Jay Chaudhry with a net worth of $12bn – had studied under a tree in his childhood. Himachal Pradesh is not only a place of scenic beauty that begets poetry, but also a place of lofty mountains that make one dream big.

Unlike Maitri Patel, Sakshi Kochhar was not fixated on the idea of flying aircraft in her childhood. She had a penchant for dancing. She was a state-level runner-up in dance before she aspired to make it big in civil aviation. That’s why she took up Mathematics and Physics in her 12^th grade at the Government Model Senior Secondary School, Chandigarh. After having passed the 12^th grade, she joined the Skyline Aviation Club in Mumbai; her maiden step into the world of aviation for basic training.

After 4 months of ground training in Mumbai, she traveled to the USA for advanced training in commercial aviation. She got trained in the dynamics of piloting a passenger aircraft there, completed the program only in 7 and half months, earned a commercial pilot license (CPL), and became India’s youngest commercial pilot. Hope an employment opportunity with IndiGo or Air India that is on a hiring spree for pilots will soon give her thrust to take off.

“Though JRD Tata pioneered civil aviation by piloting British India’s first commercial flight in October 1932, it was Indian women who blazed a trail for next-generation women to become pilots. In 1936, Sarla Thakral was the first Indian woman to enter the cockpit in a saree and fly a double-winged Gypsy Moth aircraft solo. She was a 21-year-old mother with a four-year-old child back then,” said Sourav Agarwal, the Editor of Travel Beats, a leading Indian Diaspora portal by Indian Eagle Travel.

It is a startling fact that India’s share of total female commercial pilots in the world is 12.5%, a little more than double of the United States’. Ireland and South Africa are next to India. Canada and Germany’s share of the world’s female pilot strength stands at 7%. The representation of female pilots is the poorest in Singapore and Japan.

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Many Indian-origin children in America become spellers before they grow out of the ‘diaper’ phase. Indian American Akash Vukoti whose journey to the national spelling marathon began at the age of 2 is a glaring example of such prodigious talent galore in the US. Why they have been the subject of a few documentaries, including Spelling the Dream that Netflix released in 2022, is no surprise. Likewise, a documentary should be made on the world’s youngest biomedical engineer who recently earned his doctorate at the age of 19.

He is none other than Indian American Dr Tanishq Mathew Abraham whose exceptional aptitude for learning was recognized at the mere age of 2. One of the world’s youngest PhD holders in science, Tanishq graduated in biomedical engineering from the University of California, Davis when he was only 14. Notably, he became the world’s youngest biomedical engineer with ‘summa cum laude’ – an academic level of distinction which is considered the highest honor by most educational institutions across the world.     .

PC: Tanishq Mathew Abraham @ Twitter

During the hearing of a petition over denial of college admission to a 16-year-old student of exceptional calibre, a judge at the Madras High Court in India referred to Tanishq Abraham and quoted his TEDx talk that Tanishq had given when he was only 9. The judge said, “People should go to university and college when they are ready, not when they are old enough to go”.

While pursuing PhD, he founded Medical AI Research Center (MedARC) to leverage the potential of AI technology in the medical field and revolutionize the way diseases are currently diagnosed across the globe. As CEO of MedARC, he spearheads a team of collaborators from prestigious institutes, such as Stanford University and Princeton University. He is on a mission to advance generative medical AI for accelerating the diagnosis of neurological diseases through real-time AI-based imaging of human brain activity.

Born in Sacramento to an immigrant couple from Kerala, Tanishq has been a brilliant student and an outstanding achiever since his kindergarten days. He started making achievements at the age of 4 when he became a member of Mensa, an international society of meritorious students by scoring 99.9% in the Mensa IQ test. His sister, Tiara Abraham scored 99% in the same test. Since then, his educational adventure has been running high.

Homeschooled by his parents, he enrolled for Stanford University’s Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY) at the age of 5 and completed the math course within 6 months of the enrollment. When 6-year-old, he started studying various science streams, including chemistry, paleontology, biology, and geology. He passed a chemistry course with flying colors, that the University of California Berkley offers online.

At the age of 7, Tanishq Abraham joined the American River College, Sacramento to pursue geology and astronomy courses. He scored ‘A’ grades in both the courses. Impressed with his merit and his interest in astronomy, the astronomy professor set up an astronomy club and made Tanishq its founding vice president. He qualified as a high school graduate with three associate degrees from the American River College in 2014 when he turned 11.

When he was 9 years old, he appeared as the youngest science prodigy to speak at a NASA conference in 2012. Some of his essays were published on NASA’s lunar science website. The opportunity to speak at a TEDx conclave in Sacramento came his way the same year. His insatiable curiosity, appetite for knowledge, and passion for learning has been shaped by his parents and grandparents. His father is a software engineer and his mother is a veterinary doctor. His grandmom, Dr Thankam Mathew was the first Indian woman veterinarian to have received a doctorate degree. She has been a trailblazer. His grandfather was a veterinary surgeon and researcher. They all made sure that their genius child could continue his pursuit for infinite learning and innovation.

On successful completion of his PhD, he said, “My mom quit her own PhD to raise me. 20 years later, my PhD is the best Mother’s Day gift for her. I am thankful for two decades of her love, support and guidance. My mom is truly a super mom!”

Dr Tanishq Mathew Abraham aspires to be a doctor of medicine, research on new cancer treatments, win a Nobel Prize and run for the United States’ presidential seat. He has created a unique device that can measure the heartbeats of burnt patients without touching the body. The sky is the limit for this prodigy who encourages young scholars and scientists to push their limits.

This story about child prodigy Tanishq Abraham is part of our continued effort at Travel Beats, a community portal for Indians in USA to promote the achievements of young Indian Americans. Subscribe to our free newsletter for the latest community news, regular updates on US visa & immigration, India tourism news, and inspiring stories of Indian Americans.

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The thundering applause that arose from all quarters for 8^th grader Dev Shah having won the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee is still echoing in America and India. Giving wind to this is the remarkable achievement of another Indian-origin young talent, Saathvik Kannan. 17-year-old Saathvik from Hickman High School finished among the best 10 young STEM leaders in the Regeneron Science Talent Search and won a whopping $50,000 cash prize. 

PC: Societyforscience.org

Virus and nuclear weaponry are the deadliest threats to the existence of life on our planet. While international agreements among countries act as safeguards to mitigate nuclear risks to the world, the menace of a contagious virus takes years to be contained. Decoding what causes the emergence or resurgence of a virus outbreak is a key to containing future outbreaks. This is where Indian American Saathvik Kannan’s award-winning research comes into play.

In his project for the Regeneron Science Talent Search, he applied bio-computational models to unearth and understand the factors causing such infectious diseases as monkeypox that resurged in 2022 when the COVID-19 pandemic began to recede in most parts of the world. In May 2022, London detected the first case of m-pox virus in a person who had been to Nigeria where monkeypox was an endemic.

The approach he took to shaping the project is called BioPlex. BioPlex is an open access resource for studying protein-protein interactions, according to Wikipedia. BioPlex minerals that get easily bound to amino acids and peptides are absorbed and metabolized in the body. That’s why he adopted this approach and used machine learning as well as 3-dimensional protein modelling to study the structure of multi-protein complexes and their mutations that support proliferation of the virus.

Saathvik Kannan’s project provides a foundation for understanding the factors that are likely to cause new virus outbreaks any time in the future. “It is evident from the sequential waves of the COVID-19 pandemic that any virus can resurge from its dormant state in a short period of time. Hence, my research has lots of potential to help understand the root causes for future outbreaks,” said Kannan. Reportedly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an alert, on May 15, for a new outbreak of monkeypox this summer.

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