SWENext, the free pre-college program of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), recently recognized these exceptional future engineers and computer scientists for their pursuits of engineering projects, their understanding of engineering principles, their roles in inspiring young girls to pursue engineering and their contributions to the communities they live in.
Global Innovator Award Recipients
The SWENext Global Innovator Award recognizes the outstanding young people shaping the future of SWE by developing an engineering identity in themselves and others. Award recipients exemplify intellectual curiosity, enthusiasm, and leadership in the STEM community. These students demonstrate a commitment to bettering the lives of women in STEM and volunteering in outreach initiatives, and are pursuing a career in engineering. This is the ultimate award a SWENexter can receive and is comparable to the Outstanding Collegiate Award.
Abigail C.
California
Abigail C. is the founder of a student-led nonprofit dedicated to unifying youth through early exposure to STEM. She was honored with the SWENext Community Award in 2024 and the National Center for Women & Information Technology, or NCWIT, National Honorable Mention in 2025. Her research spans AI-driven cancer detection, drug resistance in pathogens, and enzymatic catalysis. She has also contributed to the development of assistive technologies, such as smart walkers for the elderly, blending her passion for biomedical research, data science, and engineering to create meaningful impact.
Anarghya P.
Washington
Anarghya P. is an aspiring robotics and AI engineer with six years of competitive robotics experience. She has served as treasurer and outreach lead for her FIRST Robotics team and as team lead, outreach lead, build lead, and lead computer-aided design (CAD) designer for her FIRST Tech team. Passionate about STEM outreach, she has mentored FIRST LEGO League teams, led workshops, and organized fundraisers to support STEM education while actively promoting gender diversity in engineering through SWENext and other initiatives. Her leadership and impact have earned her recognition as a FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC), Dean’s List Finalist, NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Affiliate Winner, SWENext Community Award recipient, and a finalist in the Washington State Congressional App Challenge. She has also received FTC Inspire Awards, an FLL Mentor Award, and an FTC invitational qualification to the FIRST Tech World Competition in the Netherlands. She is dedicated to advancing robotics and AI while fostering an inclusive STEM community to create meaningful change.
Anika B.
California
Anika B. is passionate about leveraging STEM to solve global challenges. Her award-winning innovations include a microbial fuel cell that generates sustainable electricity, selected as a Society of Science Top 300 Broadcom MASTERS competitor; a health tracker for asthma management, which won first place at the California State Science Fair in 2021 and has a patent pending; and an AI model for detecting cancer, which was an Alameda County Science Fair winner in 2023. Her mobile app to identify allergens in food and cosmetics earned a “Judge’s Favorite” award at Coolest Projects International in 2024, a global Raspberry Pi Foundation event. This inspired her to start a nonprofit to combat food insecurity. Anika has been a SWENext and SWE High School Leadership Academy member since 2022, HOBY leadership ambassador in 2024, and Girls Who Code alumna. She founded her school’s STEAM Forward Club, partnering with the SWENext Club to bridge art and STEM. She earned Gold Presidential Volunteer Service Awards twice as a volunteer, mentor, and researcher at the Chabot Space & Science Center California, starting in 2022. Her NASA internship in 2024 fueled her aerospace ambitions, complementing her computer science expertise.
Claire F.
North Carolina
As a member of her SWENext Club, which doubles as an all-girl FIRST Robotics Competition team, 9008 G-Force Robotics, Claire F. empowers girls in STEM. As CAD lead and a member of the build team, she enjoys robot design and fabrication. Additionally, leading G-Force’s “Be That Engineer” Literacy Project, Claire invites women STEM professionals to write encouraging notes in books from the SWENext booklist that are read and donated to elementary schools. Collaborating with global organizations, Claire has grown the project in nine states and five other countries. Recently, she researched and found books in Arabic and Swedish, and coordinated a donation to a Kenyan afterschool program. Claire is also a member of the Student Association for STEM Advocacy, advocating for extracurricular STEM funding on Capitol Hill. She earned the 2024 SWENext STEM in Action and the 2024 FIRST Dean’s List Finalist awards. In the future, Claire wants to pursue aerospace engineering.
Saanvi S.
Washington
Saanvi S. has served as president of her school’s SWENext Club for two years. Building the SWENext Club for her school from scratch, she has guided her team to win various challenges, such as the Microsoft Hunt the Wumpus and the University of Washington Hack for Social Good competitions. Most notably, her club won the 2025 NASA TechRise challenge and is working with NASA engineers to build a payload for a Stratollite unmanned balloon launch. Outside of SWENext, Saanvi is the team captain of her school’s science olympiad and is a state champion in its detector building and robot tour events. She is passionate about scientific research, interning at the University of Washington Sensor Systems Laboratory and winning Best Interdisciplinary Research and Excellence in Technology awards for building an energy harvester as a renewable energy generator. She also interned at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, building machine learning models to analyze and predict medulloblastoma tumorigenesis.
Sloan M.
North Carolina
Sloan M. is co-founder of her SWENext Club, which doubles as an all-girl FIRST Robotics Competition team, 9008 G-Force Robotics, for which she served as president. Participating in competitive robotics for seven years, Sloan started two all-girl teams in her hometown to encourage girls to develop their engineering and coding skills while advancing her own abilities. As vice president of her school’s Robotics, Engineering, and Computer Science Club and a member of the Student Association for STEM Advocacy, she is a strong voice on Capitol Hill, advocating for increased federal funding for STEM enrichment programs. Her exemplary efforts and passion for engineering earned her the 2023 and 2025 SWENext STEM in Action awards and the 2024 NCWIT Regional Computing Aspirations Award. Her robotics team was the first all-girl team to win the FIRST World Championship Engineering Inspiration Award in 2024. The team had previously won the World Championship Rookie All-Star Award in 2023.
Community Award Recipients
This award program emphasizes the impact SWENexters can have in their communities to solve real-world problems. This award also stresses the interconnectedness of the SWE community and gives awardees a chance to interact with SWE members, companies, colleges, and universities.
Brooke C.
California
Brooke C. is an active 2024-2025 SWENext member at Westview High School and is strengthening her advocacy for young women in engineering, primarily focused on creating a pathway for girls at the elementary, middle, and high school level. Brooke’s freshman Introduction to Engineering and Design class captured her interest for a career in the engineering field, and she wants to inspire other young girls to do the same. She participated in the 2025 SWE UCSD ENVISION event that empowered, inspired, and supported high school students, and she hopes to provide those experiences to younger girls in middle and elementary school. Her outreach includes volunteering at an elementary school to inspire girls and foster a love for STEM.
Jiarui X.
Massachusetts
Jiarui Michelle X., a sophomore from Mississippi, discovered her passion for STEM through participating in Cyberstart America, where she was awarded the Cyberstart America Gold award and earned the GIAC Foundational Cybersecurity Technologies certification. Her passion led her to create HerSTEMJourney to empower young girls in STEM. Through this initiative, Jiarui has provided many resources, such as hosting STEM workshops at her local middle school and creating an educational YouTube channel. She was recognized as a 2025 Digital4good Changemaker. Jiarui also developed an app, MRDelta, to raise awareness about the Mississippi River Delta Crisis. She is a 2024 Technovation Girls Challenge International semifinalist, 2024 Congressional App Challenge winner, and a 2025 National STEM Festival finalist. In addition, Jiarui is a 2024 AIME qualifier and received the 2024 AMC 10 Certificate of Distinction. Jiarui hopes to continue to make a positive impact in the STEM field.
Rahini C.
California
Rahini is a high school student from California and a passionate advocate for STEM education and computer science, particularly in empowering young girls to bridge the gender gap in these fields. As an officer of her high school’s Girls Who Code chapter, she initiated a program teaching 60+ middle school girls to code. She created a YouTube channel, Be A PROgrammer, which has 1,700+ views. On this channel, she teaches coding concepts, believing anyone can learn coding with the right resources. As a leader at IntelliHer and Girls Rule AI, she helped organize STEM and AI workshops, reaching hundreds of students worldwide. She is interested in AI and software development and aims to use technology to solve real-world problems. Recently, she was named a 2025 NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Northern California Affiliate winner. Rahini aspires to pursue computer science and use her skills to make a positive impact on the world.
Sara R.
Minnesota
Sara’s passion for real-world learning led her to meet with and learn from people in dozens of large companies. Over three years, she has learned from people in 30 areas of the medical device company Boston Scientific, and she spent a summer in an intensive learning program that the company created for her. Sara has created, implemented, and taught STEM-focused real-world learning lesson plans and assignments in classrooms for four years and is working to scale this initiative to schools nationwide. She is an NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Impact Award recipient, as well as an Aspirations in Computing National Honorable Mention recipient and state winner. She co-created the Technology Exploration Award, which recognizes girls who reach out to and learn from technology practitioners, and partnered with the Minnesota Technology Association to bring it to fruition statewide in Minnesota. Sara is co-captain of her school’s robotics team and a SHLA participant.
Sarah Y.
Iowa
Sarah Y., a junior at Ames High School, is a passionate STEM advocate. As an active SWENext member, Sarah is committed to promoting inclusivity and innovation in engineering. She serves as captain of FIRST Robotics Team Neutrino #3928, leading more than 30 members in designing, programming, and building competitive robots that consistently qualify for the World Championships. She has led initiatives like week-long robotics camps, mentored younger students, and developed CAD tutorials to support her team’s technical growth. Beyond her team, Sarah empowers women in her community by organizing programs that introduce young girls to engineering fundamentals. Partnering with SWE, she ensures participants meet role models and gain hands-on experience in STEM projects. Sarah is also an NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Impact Award recipient, recognized for creating inclusive STEM communities. She aspires to combine her technical skills and leadership to make technology accessible for all.
Tanmayi P.
North Carolina
Tanmayi is a passionate STEM enthusiast, focusing on both education and research. She is the workshop lead for Women in STEM, empowering peers to pursue careers in the sciences. Her interest in research has been recognized by North Carolina Science & Engineering and the Student Academy of Sciences through various awards throughout middle and high school. Her research includes topics such as AI content software, machine learning for autism spectrum disorder, polymer chemistry, and dyslexia. She is also an award-winning participant in the NC Science Olympiad and coaches her middle school team. At her high school, she is a member of SWENext, peer tutoring, the Red Cross, and the varsity swim team. Her dedication toward community service has been recognized with President’s Volunteer Service Award gold awards. She is also an advocate for youth artists, volunteers as a visual arts instructor, and is a young art entrepreneur. She has gained advanced fluency in several languages.
Community Award Honorable Mentions
Audrey L.
California
Audrey L. is a dedicated student at Westview High with a strong passion in engineering. Her interest in mechanical engineering led her to a Principles of Engineering class. While learning about technical engineering skills, she also noticed the lack of female representation in engineering, resulting in her efforts to empower girls in STEM. From 2024 to 2025, she joined a SWENext Club to encourage other high school girls to pursue STEM careers. In addition, she participated in UCSD’s Empowerment and Development for Girls in Engineering Program in 2024-2025 and attended SWE at UCSD’s 2025 Envision conference. In her next three years of high school, Audrey intends to further involve herself with various learning opportunities and empower teenage girls to explore their interest in engineering.
Jiya S.
California
As captain of FTC Artemis, Jiya led her team through significant growth. In 2023, she won Artemis the Impact Award, qualifying the team for Northern California regionals, and the Motivate Award. On the technical side, she designed the intake and climber mechanisms on the 2024 robot. In 2024, Jiya was elected treasurer of EVHS Robotics, a club with more than 120 students, where she manages an $80,000+ budget across three FTC teams and one FRC team. In addition, her community outreach won her FRC team the Engineering Inspiration Award, qualifying for the 2024 FRC World Championships. Moreover, she started a SWENext Club, hosting three major WiSTEM events, increasing female membership from 23 to 58 and female leadership by 35%.
Nisa T.
California
Nisa is a dedicated cybersecurity enthusiast and aspiring computer scientist. She has been a CyberPatriot competitor since 2021. She was the team captain and voted most valuable player of her team in 2022-2023. Nisa co-founded and currently serves as vice president of the SWENext Club at her high school. She founded Decode, an initiative to introduce elementary students to computer science through Scratch programming. Nisa has received multiple awards, including the President’s Award for Educational Excellence. In her spare time, she writes poetry and enjoys learning new programming languages.
Saanvi S.
Washington
Saanvi is a high school student passionate about aerospace, robotics, and empowering the next generation of women in STEM. She has been the treasurer of her SWENext Club since 2023. She volunteers through SWENext and Girls Who Code, helping kids develop coding skills and confidence in STEM fields. Saanvi also founded her school’s NASA TechRise team. She mobilized her SWENext Club to participate in the challenge, securing a grant to build an experiment that will launch on a high-altitude balloon in 2025. She is the hardware lead for her FIRST Tech Challenge robotics team, working on CAD design and mechanical engineering for more than six years, and leading her team to win awards in design and innovation. Saanvi’s dedication to STEM and outreach has earned her the NCWIT Western Washington and Seattle Affiliate Award for 2025. She is extremely devoted to engineering and plans to pursue it in the future.
Sophie C.
Brazil
Sophie C. is a 15-year-old student at St. Paul’s School in São Paulo, Brazil. Born in the United Kingdom, she moved to Brazil at six months old, giving her a unique perspective on engineering and global problem-solving. She joined SWENext on Oct. 1, 2024, and is eager to explore the field of mechanical engineering, with a particular passion for motorsports. Her ultimate goal is to become a mechanical engineer for a Formula 1 team. She has participated in summer courses at institutions such as Mundo Maker in São Paulo to further her knowledge. Though new to engineering, her enthusiasm and dedication drive her to seek opportunities for learning and innovation.
Valentina T.
Brazil
Valentina is interested in computer science and engineering. She joined a SWENext Club last August and participated in club meetings. She has created a nonprofit organization that focuses on eating disorders, and she has helped secure donations for a nursing home in São Paulo. Valentina spends most of her time after school doing dressage, which is a horse-riding sport, and she is a two-time Brazilian champion.
Zaria H.
Maryland
Zaria is a rising junior at Glenelg High School who enjoys learning about engineering. She is passionate about introducing underrepresented communities to STEM. She is the co-founder of STEMEd Kids, an organization dedicated to introducing Muslim kids to STEM. She is the assistant captain and hardware lead of SpiderByte, an all-girls FIRST Tech Challenge team. Furthermore, she is a co-president and founding member of the Glenelg High School SWENext Club. Through these activities, she has reached over 2,000 underrepresented kids by hosting robotics and coding workshops and mentoring FIRST Lego League Explore teams. She was nominated to be a FIRST Deans List semifinalist and was recognized by county executive Calvin Ball for her efforts in STEM advocacy. Zaria also plays volleyball and has won Scholastic Art and Writing gold and silver key awards for her artworks.
SWENext Clubs Best Practices Award Recipients
Recognize outstanding SWENext Clubs around the world and to provide further opportunity for students to be involved in the SWE Community by introducing them to the Annual Conference and awards. This award is to recognize SWENext Clubs that have worked to help their members explore their engineering interests and to obtain information on best practices that SWENext Clubs are implementing to share with and advance the SWENext Clubs program as a whole.
SWENEXT MCM (#2034)
SWENext Clubs Inspiration Award Recipients
The goal of this award is to recognize outstanding SWENext Clubs around the world who have made an impact in their local STEM community. Additionally, the goal is to have the students participating in this challenge practice their own curiosity through STEM-related events and/or activities.
Redmond High School SWENext (#2097)
SWENextLA (#2094)
Congratulations to all award recipients. We are so proud of you!
