About Me
Founder
Samvrit Rao
Here's a revised version tailored for the STEMForU webpage:
Samvrit Rao, founder and CEO of STEMForU, is an incoming freshman at Columbia University and a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. Growing up in the tri-state area before moving to Virginia from the Bronx, he witnessed educational disparity firsthand—an experience that inspired him to establish our organization in 2020.
Through STEMForU, Samvrit leads our mission to support underrepresented communities in STEM education by developing novel curriculum and hosting engaging programs like in-person poster presentations. Our organization earned a 2023 3M-Discovery Education alumni grant to expand its reach and has benefited over 120 students by fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills through innovative educational approaches.
Samvrit brings extensive research experience to our organization, including four co-authored peer-reviewed publications and internships at prestigious institutions. His scientific journey began with a personal battle with asthma, which inspired his project BOREAS/Breathwise, recognized by 3M. Throughout high school, he conducted research at the University of Texas Medical Branch, HHMI Janelia, and Harvard Medical School, with his work earning recognition at regional, state, and national levels.
Outside of science, Samvrit enjoys reading and playing cricket, football, and basketball with friends, bringing a well-rounded perspective to our organization's mission.
RECENT RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS:
▪ Automated quantification of periodic discharges in human electroencephalogram (2024) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2057-1976/ad6c53
▪ Automated Medical Records Review for Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia (2024) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4965412
▪ Identification of Patients with Congestive Heart Failure: Automated Electronic Health Records Phenotyping (2024) https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/64113
▪ Mechanisms of Intracellular Communication in Cancer and Pathogen Spreading (2024) https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-62036-2_13
AWARDS & RECOGNITION:
▪ 2025 National Merit Semifinalist
▪ 2023, 2024 Virginia Junior Academy of Science Symposium- 1ST Place
▪ 2022, 2023, 2024 Virginia State TSA - 1st, 2nd, and 3rd placements
▪ 2023 JSHS National Finalist (Top 10)
▪ 2023 Regional Science & State Fair 1st place Biochemistry
▪ Extemp Speech Top 10 in GMU National tournament (2023)
▪ America’s Top 10 Young Scientists Recognition- 3M (2020)
▪ US National Champion: Intl Geography Bee (Junior Varsity- 2019)
▪ Indian Classical music performer at regional events (2015 – present)
PROJECTS
Dissecting Genomic, Neuropathological, and Motor Behavioral Alterations in Parkinsonism: Neurobehavioral and genomic analysis to identify risk genes altering pathogenic traits in Parkinsonism (May 2024- Present); Janelia HHMI Institute, Ashburn, VA
Clinical prognostic monitoring and outcome prediction using ML, AI and signal processing: Utilizing EHR & Electrophysiology insights to forecast outcomes: Bridging medicine, data science and prognostic diagnostics (May 2023- Present); Harvard-MIT HST, Boston, MA (3 research publications)
Assignmentor: A webapp for under-resourced educational settings: Leveraged LLM-based platform for real-time student guidance, enhancing personalized learning outcomes (Jan 2023- Present); Discovery Education Grant award; STEMForU Advocacy Non-profit, Ashburn, VA
In-vitro aided computational approach to identify preclinical drug targets to treat Glioblastoma Multiforme: Omics analysis, In-vitro Imaging and ML to pinpoint molecular drug targets for Glioblastoma Multiforme (Jul 2022- Mar 2024); 2024 VJAS Symposium: Ranked 1st (Biotechnology); 2023 Yale SEA outstanding project award & Mark Licata award for Biotechnology UTMB, Galveston, TX (1 research publication)
BOREAS: Innovating Respiratory Care through Telemedicine: Innovating Respiratory Care through Telemedicine: Unified hardware-software solution that is used to capture and transmit breath sounds (May 2020- Present); Invited talk at ISCB national computational biology conference; 2023 VJAS Symposium: Ranked 1st (Engineering) & 2023 VA Bio special award
Identifying Similar Whole Slide Images (WSI) and Pathology Reports with Multimodal Machine Learning: Graph Neural Networks and Natural Language Processing to create a tool for pathologists (May 2023 - Sep 2023)Dartmouth Health, Virtual Intern (1 research publication)
Routine Remind: Intuitive mobile app utilizing Natural Language Processing to aid individuals with social and cognitive impairments (Aug 2021- May 2023); 2022 Congressional app award winner for #VA10
Understanding the Viral- Host immune interactions using computation-aided Immunomics approaches in SARS-CoV2 infection: Identifying key Immune mediators of COVID disease severity; (2021- 2022) Karolinska, Sweden.