Naperville Teen Wins $50,000 Davidson Fellows Scholarship

NAPERVILLE, IL — An 18-year-old Naperville girl has won a $50,000 Davidson Fellows Scholarship, one of only 20 students from across the country.

Meena Jagadeesan won the scholarship for her project “The Exchange Graphs of Weakly Separated Collections,” according to a news release from The Davidson Institute of Talent Development.

“My brother was a Davidson Fellow Laureate in 2014, and I’m excited to be a Davidson Fellow Laureate as well!” said Jagadeesan in the release. “I’m thrilled to meet all of this year’s Davidson Fellows and be part of this community.”

In her project, Jagadeesan explored the crossover of algebra and combinatorics, the branch of mathematics dealing with combinations of objects belonging to a finite set in accordance with certain constraints, the release said. Her work in understanding higher-dimensional vector space and understanding the structure of the nonnegative Grassmannian has applications in computer - based image recognition, according to the release.

Jagadeesan comes from a long line of mathematicians and high-level thinkers, according to the release. Both her parents are computer scientists, and all four of her grandparents are retired math professors. Her brother, Ravi, was a Davidson Fellow Laureate in 2014. When not studying math, Jagadeesan enjoys playing piano, running, being in nature, and watching spy movies, the release said.

Jagadeesan graduated from the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H. She participated in the Emory Research Experience for Undergraduates, MIT-PRIMES Program, Research Science Institute (RSI), and the Garcia MRSEC Research Scholars Program. She will attend Harvard University in the fall where she plans to major in mathematics.

“We are thrilled to recognize the 2016 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.”