Local Innovator Award Recipients:
The SWENext Local Innovator Award recognizes outstanding young women shaping the future of SWE who have demonstrated a commitment to bettering the lives of women in STEM.
Hally Chheang
Hally is the president of the Prospect Robotics SWENext club, known as FRC 2813, where she is involved in the design, fabrication, and wiring of their robots. As Outreach lead on her team in 2021, she began a series of panels focusing on experience in STEM and her team has invited members of SWE and girls on her team to share their experiences. During the 2023 FRC Season with more female representation than ever before, she hopes to include and engage girls to create a more diverse environment for engineering.
Angelina Kwan
Angelina, an aspiring bioengineer from California, is the President and Founder of her high school’s SWENext Club. In 2022, Angelina volunteered to teach hands-on STEM activities such as circuit building at the Cabrillo National Monument Junior Scientist Day and Canyon View Elementary STEAM Festival. Through SWENext, she plans to continue inspiring girls in her community to explore careers in STEM.
Anna Rosner
Anna is an aspiring Computer Engineer from Virginia and the Community Events Chair of the SWENext Club at her school! She’s passionate about robotics, and as the captain of her school’s robotics team, she leads efforts to make technology accessible to everyone.
Parul Sadasivuni
Parul is an aspiring computer scientist from Texas with a passion for women empowerment through STEM. She is a founding member and Vice President of her school’s Girls Who Code chapter and a Programs Head for INNOVERGE INTERNATIONAL, a non-profit working to provide underprivileged students with STEMx enrichment. In her junior year of high school, she created a Web Development program for girls; her goal was to foster an encouraging environment for the participants to learn coding. Hosted at her local public library as well as for an all-girls troop of Boy Scouts of America, these programs were immensely successful and highly appreciated by participants and community members. Her project was selected by the National Academy of Engineering (in Washington DC) and she is an NAE Ambassador for the year 2023. The grant received as part of the ambassador program enabled her to further expand the project and serve more girls on a grand scale. This spring, she will organize her program (in the new library that is opening in her city) to empower young coders and broaden her impact on her community!
STEM In Action Award Recipients:
The SWENext STEM in Action Award emphasizes the impact SWENexters have in their communities through volunteering, SWE and SWENext participation and events promoting STEM and supporting the SWE mission.
Paulina Ai
Paulina, an aspiring Computer Engineer from California, is the Co-Founder and President of her high school’s SWENext club and an avid mathematician. In 2022 she assisted SWENext outreach at events with up to 700 people. This spring, she looks forward to putting on a speaker event for her school’s SWENext Club.
Mia Beltran
Mia, a Junior from California and an aspiring Aerospace Engineer, is the Vice President of her SWENext Chapter and the Outreach Director of her FIRST Robotics Competition team. This August, she spearheaded and hosted her team’s 8th annual GIRLS Conference, with the purpose of engaging young students, from the local and global community, to learn and network with STEAM professionals. She also won a SWE UCSD Biotech Research Project based around Cancer CAR-T Cell Therapy and participates in local events with her SWENext Club and Robotics team to spread inclusivity and equity in engineering education.
Lily Bertrand
Lily, an aspiring Aerospace Engineer and Digital Artist from California, is the Secretary for the SWENext Club at her high school and is also the Media Director for her FIRST Robotics Competition team, TitanBot 2543. Lily has been an active mentor for a local VEX Robotics Competition team, 6517 TritonBot, fostering the growth of over 50 students with 7 years of experience in various robotics leagues. She is also co-founding a Nonprofit Organization that inspires the younger generation of girls to discover their passion for STEM.
Prital Jariwala
Prital Jariwala, a Californian aspiring to work at the intersection of biology and engineering, is the secretary and SWENext liaison for her high school’s robotics team. She hosted Arduino classes for local middle schoolers giving them hands-on experience with circuits and robotics by creating projects and lesson plans, and also regularly volunteers at the physical rehabilitation center of her local hospital to help patients recover and educate herself about the medical field. Over the summer, she plans to engage in research as an intern in biomedical engineering.
Reeva Khokhar
Reeva, an aspiring computer science engineer from New Jersey, is the President of the Girls Who Code chapter at her high school and she is one of the National Teen Advisory Board members of Techgirlz. Furthermore, Reeva is a 2nd Place Congressional App Challenge winner and she is one of Major League Hacking’s Top 50 Hackers of 2022. She is truly dedicated to empowering females in STEM as the Executive Director of Girl Genius, a global non-profit, and frequently hosts many conferences and events to help young girls explore STEM fields.
Angelina Kim
Angelina, an aspiring inventor and educator from California, strives to connect innovative ideas, creativity, and new technologies to bring joy and meaningful interactions to Generation Z. Her first invention project, which started as a platform for cloud-based cheerleading programs and now has extended uses for collective display and real-time collaboration through 5G, is currently in the process of USPTO filing. Angelina is also the co-Vice President of the All Girls STEM Society and a mechanical designer and outreach lead of The Clueless FTC #11212 robotics team. In 2022, she launched a collaboration between NASA, The Clueless, All Girls STEM Society, and the Mission Valley Library to bring the NASA ASTRO CAMP® to San Diego in 2023.
Irina Kozhenkova
Irina Kozhenkova, an aspiring aerospace engineer from California, is the President of the SWENext Club at Poway High School. In 2022, she held a workshop on equity and diversity, furthered her robotics partner team’s (Team Spyder) initiatives in LGBTQ involvement, as well as participated in around 10 other related outreaches since the start of the school year. In 2023, she is planning to deepen the involvement of the team in EDI organizations as well as pursue more collaborations with local SWE clubs.
Audrey Lau
Audrey, an aspiring Materials Engineer from California, is the Founder and President of a nonprofit organization and Co-Founder of her school’s Women in STEM club. In 2021, her nonprofit established a program to bring virtual STEM activities and resources to girls in Myanmar.
Sloan Mann
Sloan Mann, an aspiring Serious Games Designer from North Carolina, is a founding member of the Johnston County STEM Girls SWENext Club. She helped start G-Force Robotics, an all-girl FIRST Robotics team in Clayton, NC that does many outreach events such as Girls Teach Tech, where they teach middle school girls about a variety of tech topics. Her most recent class in December taught Scratch coding, and another upcoming class in February 2023 will teach about artificial intelligence. She is also part of the mechanical and drive teams and preparing with her FRC team for their first competition.
Cassidy Mark
Cassidy, an aspiring Engineer from California, is the Outreach Lead of the Prospect Robotics SWENext Club also known as FRC Team 2813. In 2022, she helped start a summer camp to teach younger students how to build LEGO robots and taught various programming classes to kids of all ages. This spring, she will help her team build a robot for this year’s FRC challenge and continue to spread STEM throughout her community.
Maddie Mermelstein
Madison, an aspiring Robotics engineer from California, is the co-founder of her school’s Girls Who Code club. In May of 2022, she and her team traveled to Dallas to compete in the VEX Robotics World Championships. On a STEAMwork Summer Support Grant awarded by her school, she traveled to England to take part in a two-week engineering program at Oxford University. In her spare time, she is currently designing and constructing a calculator using Arduino.
Madeline Pinches
Madeline, an aspiring Environmental Engineer from California, is a SHLA graduate and SWENext member since 2021. She is involved in teaching STEM to elementary schoolchildren and is co-leader of the “Chemistry Magic Show”. Currently, she is excited to be a part of the SWENext Advisory Board, and hopes to connect more aspiring women engineers with SWENext.
Riya Saha
Saanvi Subramanian
Harini Thiagarajan
Harini, an aspiring Computer Engineer and Mathematician from Washington, is the founder of her school’s Math Honor Society, president of her school’s Math Club, and founder of the STEM non-profit Varsity Math Circle. Two years ago through the Math Honor Society, she initiated the school district’s first high school student mentorship community project, in which high schoolers coach middle schoolers on STEM subjects. Through Varsity Math Circle, she increases participation, encouragement, and funding for STEM minorities through math and computer science year-long and summer programs, and she is looking forward to expanding her programs nationally in the upcoming year.
Maria Ulloa
Maria, an aspiring Computer Engineer from California, is the President of the SWENext Club at her high school. She has planned, organized, and hosted a conference to inspire girls to pursue STEAM careers (Girls Inspiring Real Leadership in STEAM Conference) and reached out to STEAM professionals to network with the conference participants. She has also worked on a STEAM Art Contest for K-12 students to encourage them to learn more about STEAM and engineering through art and creativity.
Alyssa Wong
Alyssa, an aspiring biomedical engineer, is her school’s SWENext Marketing Director, HeForSWE Ambassador, and the Mechanical Director of FIRST Robotics Competition team TitanBot. In 2021, she was the president of her school’s SWENext club, where she co-hosted a K-12 STEAM Art Contest and TitanBot’s annual G.I.R.L.S. Conference. She often mentors other FIRST Robotics Teams and is in the process of co-founding a nonprofit organization to help young kids explore STEM activities.
Jocelyn Zhang
Jocelyn, an aspiring electrical engineer from California, is the President of Project Art of Learning, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which provides free one-on-one STEM tutoring for underprivileged children and refugees all around the world. She is also the Del Norte Ambassador of All Girls STEM Society which aims to promote STEM to young girls, inspiring them to pursue STEM careers and close the gender gap. She has previously helped her school’s Girls In Computer Science Club host numerous computing camps, courses, and competitions. In the coming years, she plans to expand Project Art of Learning to more countries.
Congratulations to all of the award winners. We are so proud of you!
