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USA Today honours two more Indian American students

R S Shankar

Nadarajan Chetty, a Harvard University student, has a grade point average of 4.00. But it was not just his grades that caught the attention of the judges for the All-USA College Academic Team, established by the USA Today newspaper.

Chetty is a co-founder of Harvard Currents. He has also developed an economic model of corporate investment choice and timing.

He found a place in the second tier of the Academic Team. Like the first tier, the second team, too, has 20 achievers. There are two Indian Americans in the second tier and two in the first.

First Teamers are academically top-notch, with an grade-point average of 3.92 on a scale in which 4.00 is all A's. At least seven of them will continue their studies at Oxford this fall as Rhodes or Marshall scholars. But grades and academic honors are not enough, the newspaper says: Judges also considered activities, leadership and how the students use their intellectual skills outside the classroom.

Neelaksh Varshney, who has spent three summers studying the brain and who, last summer, created a neural network model of how the brain processes motion, is among the First Teamers. He is bound for Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship.

Jacob Chacko, who is passionately committed to helping underprivileged teenagers in Los Angeles, is another winner in the First Team. He is a winner of the Marshall scholarship, considered as prestigious as Rhodes, and will go to England later this year to study for two years.

The second team also includes Mahesh Shenai, who is at Johns Hopkins and has a 3.93 GPA. He has developed a mathematical model of diseased heart tissue and designed a cardiac implant aimed at reducing heart failure.

Also included in the second team is Donovan Maust from the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va, who has a 3.98 GPA. He has conducted an analysis of the Family Planning Association of India's maternal and child health programs.

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