2 ABQ teens rise above and beyond
One of them has a love for theoretical mathematics and recently won a national STEM competition. The other has persevered through tragedy to become a standout collegiate soccer player.
In a world too easily shadowed by dark events, Albuquerque Academy ninth-grader Akilan Sankaran and UNM freshman Zaria Katesigwa are two of Albuquerque’s many teenagers who are doing extraordinary things. They both were recently featured in Journal stories.
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Fourteen-year-old Akilan recently won the $25,000 Samueli Foundation Prize at the Broadcom MASTERS science and engineering contest. Akilan made it into the nation’s premier middle school STEM competition held virtually in Washington, D.C., after winning the state science fair in mathematical sciences.
The national competition drew 1,841 middle school students and was winnowed down to 30 finalists. Akilan is the first student with a math project to win the top prize in the MASTERS’ 11-year history.
What’s even more impressive — this is the first year Akilan has participated in a science fair. Talk about opening with a bang.
Akilan entered the competition as an eighth-grader with his project on highly divisible numbers. He wrote a computer program that calculates antiprime numbers that are over 1,000 digits and, in the process, created a new class of functions to measure a number’s divisibility.
Why bother? Because his project could allow such software and apps as Shazam to run more quickly.
Akilan credits his teacher, David Metzler, for showing him “the beauty of certain math concepts.”
“He just brings a real enthusiasm and joy for mathematics, and he’s exceptionally mature in his approach to the subject for his age,” Metzler said.
We may have Akilan to thank one day for the apps we download.
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University of New Mexico freshman and Albuquerque High graduate Zaria Katesigwa, 18, burst onto the collegiate soccer scene despite suffering the devastating loss of her mother just months before her season began.
Her mother, Janell, was hit and killed by a suspected drunken driver on the West Side in May.
Zaria made this season a tribute to her mom, who Zaria says was her No. 1 fan. Zaria says her mother rarely missed a game throughout her young soccer career, so it must have been even harder to pursue excellence on the field without her presence on the sidelines.
But Zaria has had a stellar season at UNM and was recently chosen Mountain West Conference Newcomer of the Year. She ranked second on the team in goals and points, and was selected to the Mountain West’s all-conference second team.
UNM teammate Jaelyn Hendren says Zaria is probably the strongest person she’s ever known. “She’s faced all that adversity, but she’s one of our strongest workers, and I think it speaks a lot to who she is as a person and her character,” Hendren said.
UNM women’s soccer coach Heather Dyche said the team has rallied around Zaria, not just because of the loss of her mother, but “because of who she is.”
“She’s just a different kind of person, in the best way possible,” Dyche said.
Akilan and Zaria are both special young people, making the most of their talents with hard work and perseverance.
Congratulations to them both. Well done.