Nallamothu, a high school sophomore from Normal, Illinois, excels in coding and empowering young girls to pursue and persevere in tech-related studies
“Sirihaasa Nallamothu is wired to learn, teach, and help others,” said Cheryl O’Donoghue, CEO at Aspire2STEAM.org. “At just 15 she already possesses a mind-boggling array of coding skills, many of which she taught herself; aspires to solve real and serious health problems facing the world today; and is a positive role model and teacher of girls both younger and older than herself.”
Sirihaasa is also quite motivated. At the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, she was astounded by how long a family friend and others had to wait to get tested for COVID-19 and then get their results. She felt compelled to help create a faster diagnosis process, which led to her expanding her algorithm knowledge and creating a convolutional neural network (CNN) that uses lung x-ray images to determine whether the patient has Pneumonia, COVID-19 or is healthy. The CNN she created has applications for Leukemia and other diseases. Her hard work did not go unnoticed; she recently received a student research position with a professor at University of Illinois.