Twenty-two MCPS students from eight high schools have been awarded National Merit $2,500 scholarships financed by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

The students are among 43 high school seniors in Maryland to be selected in the latest group of National Merit Scholarship Program recipients. The scholars were selected from a pool of more than 15,000 finalists, and will receive a one-time award of $2,500 for post-secondary education.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) was established in 1955 to honor scholastically talented youth and encourage academic excellence at all levels of education. The majority of scholarships are underwritten by about 320 independent corporate and college sponsors.

The 2024 MCPS $2,500 scholarship recipients, their schools and probable career fields are:

Montgomery Blair High School

• Andy G. Cui, Neuroscience
• Reed R. Swearingen, Mechanical Engineering
• Evan Zihan Wang, Medicine
• Steven Y. Wang, Computer Science
• Angela Y. Wu, Biochemistry
• Sophia L. Zeng, Applied Mathematics

Winston Churchill High School

• Soham G. Jinsi, Mathematics
• Simran N. Mattikalli, Medicine
• Allison Zhang, Law

Walter Johnson High School

• Daniela K. Znam, Economics

Richard Montgomery High School

• Marissa C. Boucher, Astrophysics
• Zaida M. Bowsher, Linguistics
• Joseph Chen, Biology
• Sofia G. Eisenberg, Bioinformatics
• Joy Y. Jiang, Computer Science

Northwest High School

• Dwarakesh Baraneetharan, Biomedical Engineering

Poolesville High School

• Daniel Mathew, Biomedical Engineering

Walt Whitman High School

• Diya Bhattacharjee, Public Policy
• Jacob D. Lerman, Biology
• Brian K. Mason, Computer Science
• Emily S. Owens, Business

Thomas S. Wootton High School

• Anthea L. Chu, Engineering