She calls herself an advocate, change maker and an innovator.
She is also Time magazine’s 25 most influential teens of 2018.
Meet Kavya Kopparapu, an Indian-origin American teenager who has been awarded the 2018/2019 National STEM Award in the US.
The $10,000 National STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Education Award given by STEM Education US recognizes an individual who exemplifies excellence in the theoretical and practical STEM education fields and who has meaningfully promoted STEM education.
“Extremely honoured to receive this award,” she said on Twitter.
Nineteen-year-old Kavya, a freshman at Harvard University studying computer science and biology, has been researching at the intersection of medicine and computer science.
She has invented GlioVision, a precision medicine platform powered by AI that predicts tumour characteristics in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods.
The software is designed to instantly detect and interpret genetic information from a biopsy slide, skipping the long analysis. Doctors use this information to predict how fast a tumour will grow, and if it will respond to specific drugs and other treatments.
She has also been recognised as a WebMD Health Hero, Thiel Fellowship Finalist, Davidson Institute for Talent Development Scholar Laureate, Regeneron Science Talent Search Finalist and US Presidential Scholar.
Kavya is also a social entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Girls Computing League, a non-profit organisation which has raised over $100,000 for computer science programming that impacts more than 3,800 American students, aimed at closing the gender gap in computer science.
An experienced speaker, she has delivered talks at the Smithsonian Institution, NASA Kennedy Space Centre, and participated in several AI conferences.
Source: Twitter/KavyaKopparapu
