My next guest on the special series is Apoorva Panidapu. Apoorva is a 15-year-old high-school sophomore in San Jose, California. Apoorva wears many hats; she’s a student, a teacher, an aspiring mathematician, an artist, a social entrepreneur, and a public speaker who loves helping kids around the world. Apoorva started taking college classes at age 11, and has since completed several upper-division and graduate-level mathematics courses with a keen interest in Number Theory. She attended the prestigious Canada/USA Mathcamp (2018, 2019) and the highly selective University of Virginia REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) in 2020 as the youngest student there. She is grateful to have the opportunity to work with world-renowned mathematicians in her fields of interest and has co-authored and published papers in Number Theory–one of which was published in the prestigious Journal of Number Theory.
Apoorva has received several worldwide recognitions for her achievements in mathematics, such as her performance in NBC National TV show Genius Junior in 2018 hosted by Neil Patrick Harris and global awards such as the prestigious Spirit of Ramanujan Fellowship & has been selected as a World Science Scholar, one among few in the world. She is also a recipient of the 2020 Global Child Prodigy Award.
Furthermore, she co-founded the Gems in STEM initiative with the goal of teaching various topics in math, science, engineering, and technology through the stories of diverse and pivotal figures in STEM history. As a part of this, she has been publishing bi-weekly articles in the Evergreen Times newspaper, Medium, and Cantor's Paradise, the #1 math publication on Medium. She has also won several national and state awards for her speaking and writing. Apoorva is an enthusiastic artist who loves to oil paint and sketch portraits. She is the founder of Apoorva Panidapu’s Art Gallery (www.apoorvaartgallery.com), an online platform to share her artwork and raise funds for charity. She particularly enjoys impressionistic and abstract artworks.
Her story and paintings were featured on Artists for Peace, Stone Soup, and Ellen and Cheerio's “One Million Acts of Good.” She is also the grand prize winner of NASA Langley Research Center’s Centennial Student Art Contest, as well as a recipient of four Presidential Volunteer Service Awards. Apoorva is also a public speaker who encourages girls, gender minorities, and all youth to pursue STEAM fearlessly. In addition to her art gallery and Gems in STEM, she is a global ambassador for GLAM (Girls Leadership Academy Meetup), where she helps encourage girls aged 8-12 from diverse backgrounds to pursue leadership and careers in tech. Her mission is to encourage others to use their gifts to make a difference in the world. She has helped raise more than $25,000 to support children around the world by using her gifts in math and art to try and give back.
In her spare time, Apoorva enjoys playing the violin, practicing kung fu, and reading classical literature. Apoorva aspires to combine pure mathematics, art, and humanities to change the world.
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