Layla Dawit (left) and Sejal Rathi (right).

Layla Dawit (left) with her Washington, D.C. team at the 2017 Raytheon Technologies National Competition.

Sejal Rathi (right) and her team at the 2018 California MATHCOUNTS State Competition.

Layla Dawit of Potomac, MD and Sejal Rathi of San Jose, CA will each receive $3,000.

ALEXANDRIA, VA, UNITED STATES, April 8, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The MATHCOUNTS Foundation today announced two winners of the 2022 MATHCOUNTS Alumni Scholarship. Created in 2014, the MATHCOUNTS Alumni Scholarship recognizes outstanding alumni whose experiences in MATHCOUNTS were influential. This year’s winners — both high school seniors — will each receive a $3,000 award.

Layla Dawit attends Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. In 2017, she was a member of the first all-girls team to represent Washington D.C. at the Raytheon Technologies MATHCOUNTS National Competition. Inspired by the community she found at MATHCOUNTS, Dawit co-founded Gxrls in STEM Magazine, a student-run publication connecting female and nonbinary high schoolers across five continents. She leads her school’s math club, coordinates local math contests, worked as a mathematics teaching assistant and mentored students in the National Society of Black Engineers Jr. MATHCOUNTS program. She will study mathematics on a premedical track this fall. “Although I don’t have any siblings of my own, the sisterhood I’ve experienced through this community has encouraged me to keep reaching out and uplifting gxrls,” said Dawit. “As we open doors for others around the world, my MATHCOUNTS team is beginning to change what a mathematician looks like.”

Sejal Rathi attends Lynbrook High School in San Jose, California. She was a MATHCOUNTS state competitor in 2018 and is currently a MATHCOUNTS coach. Rathi founded the Bay Area chapter of inteGIRLS to help encourage girls to pursue mathematics. She also started Omega Learn, a nonprofit offering free classes and resources for students preparing for STEM competitions. She has qualified for USAJMO, USAMO and Math Prize for Girls and was a top 5 female scorer on the AMC 12. She will study mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall. “Being part of MATHCOUNTS made me resilient and taught me the power of perseverance, which is a lesson I carry with me to this day,” said Rathi. “Serving as a role model, friend and mentor to the next generation has helped me become a better version of myself—someone who is spirited, compassionate and excited to give back to the community that has given so much to me.”

The winners were selected from a pool of over 150 applicants following multiple rounds of review by a panel of MATHCOUNTS national staff. 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.

“We’re proud that these extraordinary alumnae have used the skills and perspective they gained from their time in MATHCOUNTS to help other students also find their path to math,” said Kristen Chandler, executive director of the MATHCOUNTS Foundation. “We’re grateful to our sponsors for helping to make this recognition and our programs possible.”

The MATHCOUNTS Foundation is sponsored by Raytheon Technologies, U.S. Department of Defense STEM, Northrop Grumman Foundation, the National Society of Professional Engineers, 3Mgives, Texas Instruments Incorporated and Art of Problem Solving. See the full list of sponsors at www.mathcounts.org/sponsors.

About the MATHCOUNTS Foundation
MATHCOUNTS is a nonprofit organization that strives to engage middle school students of all ability and interest levels in fun, challenging math programs 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
+1 703-299-9006 ext. 101
molly@mathcounts.org
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