Michelle Cai, 2025 MATHCOUNTS Alumni Scholarship recipient
Michelle and her MATHCOUNTS team when she participated in middle school
Four other students from four different states were recognized as finalists.
ALEXANDRIA, VA, UNITED STATES, February 11, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The MATHCOUNTS Foundation today announced the winner of the 2025 MATHCOUNTS Alumni Scholarship. Created eleven years ago, the scholarship recognizes outstanding alumni whose experiences in a MATHCOUNTS program were influential.
Michelle Cai is a senior at Scripps Ranch High School in San Diego. She competed in the MATHCOUNTS Competition Series throughout middle school and went on to coach MATHCOUNTS at her alma mater, plus at two other Title I schools as a MATHCOUNTS Community Coach. She also worked in a biophotonics lab at University of California San Diego last summer, applying numerical analyses to analyze mutant protein activity in osteosarcoma cells. In the future, Michelle hopes to use math and biology to continue deciphering life in numbers.
“Through MATHCOUNTS, I’ve learned to see challenges as opportunities and to believe in the potential of every student to rise above their fears. I carry the lessons my students taught me into every new challenge I face. Together, we’ve built something lasting—something that transcends math competitions to instill a lifelong love for learning and a belief in the power of perseverance,” Cai said.
MATHCOUNTS is able to present this $3,000 award thanks to support from title sponsor U.S. Department of Defense STEM.
The MATHCOUNTS Alumni Scholarship is open to high school seniors and college students who participated in a MATHCOUNTS program when they were in middle school. Cai was selected following multiple rounds of review by a panel of national MATHCOUNTS staff and volunteers from sponsors RTX, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Bentley Systems, CNA Insurance and Google. Four finalists also were recognized:
• Aayush Daithankar of Onalaska, Wis.
• Marina Lin of McLean, Va.
• Vishruth Pinna of West Des Moines, Iowa
• Ashwin Varadarajan of Wilmington, N.C.
“We’re delighted that Michelle’s experience in MATHCOUNTS was so impactful that she wanted to help students from three different schools in her area experience those same benefits,” said Kristen Chandler, executive director of the MATHCOUNTS Foundation. “We are so excited to see what she does in the future with this leadership experience under her belt.”
About MATHCOUNTS:
MATHCOUNTS is a nonprofit organization that strives to engage middle school students of all ability and interest levels in fun, challenging math programs, in order to expand their academic and professional opportunities. Middle school students exist at a critical juncture in which their love for mathematics must be nurtured, or their fear of mathematics must be overcome. For more than 30 years, MATHCOUNTS has provided free, high-quality resources to educators and enriching, extracurricular opportunities to students to lay a foundation for future success. Materials and information are available at www.mathcounts.org.
Molly Gormley
MATHCOUNTS
programs@mathcounts.org
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