Smruti Rath

Smruti Rath—DeBakey High School for Health Professions (tie)

Smruthi Rath, who enjoys listening to music, playing the piano for nursing home residents, and performing classical Indian dances, attended Askew Elementary and T. H. Rogers Middle schools before graduating from DeBakey. She plans to pursue a dual major in biochemistry and molecular biology at Washington University in St. Louis, from which she has already received a Florence Moog Scholarship. Rath is also the recipient of a National Merit Scholarship.

Rath lists her favorite subjects as physics, chemistry, and psychology. She serves as secretary of her school’s National Honor Society, and has been active in its BETA Club and Health Occupations Students of America chapters. Rath also participated in the Academic Decathlon, and she has been named an Advanced Placement Scholar with Distinction and received the Dean’s Scholastic Award and the Principal’s Award.

Andy Tran

Andy Tran—DeBakey High School for Health Professions (tie)

Andy Tran will be attending either Harvard University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) this fall to pursue a degree in biomedical engineering. He attended Lantrip Elementary and Pin Oak Middle schools before graduating from DeBakey, and he has received scholarships from Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard, MIT, Best Buy, and the Intel Science Talent Search.

Tran lists his favorite subjects as Advanced Placement calculus and Spanish. He serves as the manager of Reach for Health (a non-profit he founded to help educate and bring affordable medical treatment to underserved patients), a teacher at the ESL Teaching Initiative for Asian Minorities (which he also founded), and a translator in a local health clinic. When not conducting biomedical research at Rice University, he also enjoys swimming, playing the guitar, and building computers.