Ryka C.

Ryka is a junior in high school from Fremont, California, passionate about applying AI and machine learning in healthcare, particularly geriatrics and palliative care. She has also developed applications that use linguistic cues to manipulate the affective-motivational functionality of the human brain for pain management and mental health. Beyond research, Ryka is active in math, computational linguistics, and programming competitions, including the USA Mathematical Olympiad, USA Computing Olympiad, as well as the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad. She is an avid historian, vice president of her school’s history club, and a regular participant at the National History Day. Ryka is passionate about increasing the participation of females and non-binary individuals in STEM. She leads many national organizations dedicated to this goal. She is currently the Executive Director of ProjectCSGIRLS Fremont, as well as co-President of the Bay Area Chapter of InteGIRLS, both organizations promoting computational and mathematical participation among the sections traditionally underrepresented in STEM. She is also a precollege student at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she is the student council secretary. After graduating from high school, Ryka plans to attend college specializing in computation and cognition.