Kavya Kopparaputo be Named a 2018 Davidson Fellow
Kavya Kopparaputo be Named a 2018 Davidson Fellow
Herndon, Va. – The Davidson Institute for Talent Development has announced the 2018 Davidson Fellows. Among the honorees is 18-year-old Kavya Kopparapu of Herdnon. Kopparapuwon a $50,000Davidson Fellows Scholarship for her project, A Platform for the Automatic Assessment of Glioblastoma Tumor Features, Molecular Identity and Gene Methylation from Histopathological Images Using Deep Learning. She is one of only 20 students across the country to receive this honor.
“I’m excited and humbled to be recognized as a 2018 Davidson Fellow Laureate,” said Kopparapu. “I’m incredibly grateful to the Davidson Institute for this recognition of my work in artificial intelligence, and I’m looking forward to meeting other Davidson Fellows while becoming part of the Davidson community.”
Kopparapu was driven to tackle this particular problem after reading about Senator John McCain’s glioblastoma diagnosis that detailed the severity of the disease and its short prognosis. Her project is a major first step to personalized, targeted treatment for patients with glioblastoma. Kopparapu’s research led to the development of GlioVision, which makes the adoption of precision medicine techniques economical for every hospital in the country. GlioVision can determine relevant characteristics of a tumor in a faction of the time and cost of traditional methods by using a scanned image of a biopsy rather than a DNA sample.
At Thomas Jefferson High School, Kopparapu was the president of the Bioinformatics Society, Russian Culture Club, BioBuilder Synthetic Biology Club and her school’s Symposium to Advance Research. In her free time, she loves playing piano, reading science fiction and hiking.
Kopparapu will attend Harvard University in the fall where she plans to study computer science.
“We are thrilled to recognize the 2018 Davidson Fellows not only for their incredible projects, but also for the journey they forged to reach this point,” said Bob Davidson,founder of the Davidson Institute. “Every year I am amazed by the depth of the Fellows’ accomplishments. Through encouragement and recognition, the Davidson Institute for Talent Development anticipates that gifted students like these will be among the pioneers who will solve the world’s most vexing problems.”
The 2018 Davidson Fellows will be honored at a reception in Washington, D.C., on Friday, September 28.
The Davidson FellowsScholarship program offers $50,000, $25,000 and $10,000 college scholarships to students 18 or younger, who have completedsignificant projects that have the potential to benefit society in the fields of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, literature and music. The Davidson Fellows Scholarship has provided more than$7.5 million in scholarship funds to more than 300studentssince its inception in 2001, and has been named one of the mostprestigious undergraduate scholarships by U.S. News & World Report. It is a program of the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, a national nonprofit organization headquartered in Reno, Nev. that supports profoundly gifted youth.
About the Davidson Institute
Founded by Bob Davidson in 1999, the Davidson Institute for Talent Development recognizes, nurtures and supports profoundly intelligent young people, and provides opportunities for them to develop their talents to make a positive difference. The Institute offers support through a number of programs and services, including the Davidson Fellows Scholarship and the Davidson Academy of Nevada. For more information about the 2018 Davidson Fellows, please visit www.DavidsonGifted.org/Fellows-Scholarship.
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High-resolution photos are available at www.DavidsonGifted.org/Fellows-Scholarship.
