Apoorva is an enthusiastic artist who loves to oil paint and sketch portraits. She is the founder of Apoorva Panidapu’s Art Gallery (www.apoorvaartgallery.com), an online platform to share her artwork and raise funds for charity, and has raised over $50,000 so far with her work. Her story and paintings were featured on Artists for Peace, Stone Soup, and Ellen and Cheerio's “One Million Acts of Good.” She is also the grand prize winner of NASA Langley Research Center’s Centennial Student Art Contest, and the recipient of 2021 Diana Award and 6 President's Volunteer Service Awards.
Apoorva is a global speaker who encourages girls, gender minorities, and all youth to pursue STEAM fearlessly, and has spoken at global conferences in partnerships with multibillion dollar companies.
She is a mentor and ambassador for GLAM (Girls Leadership Academy Meetup), where she helps encourage girls aged 8-12 from diverse backgrounds to pursue leadership and careers in tech. Her mission is to encourage others to use their gifts to make a difference in the world.
In her spare time, Apoorva enjoys playing the violin, practicing kung fu, solving puzzles, and staying active.
About Apoorva.
Apoorva Panidapu is an undergraduate studying math, computer science, and political science at Stanford University. Apoorva wears many hats; she’s a student, a teacher, an aspiring mathematician, an artist, a writer, and a global speaker who loves helping people around the world. Apoorva started taking college classes at age 11 and has since completed several upper-division and graduate-level mathematics courses with a keen interest in number theory. She attended the prestigious Canada/USA Mathcamp (2018, 2019) and the highly selective University of Virginia REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) in 2020 and 2021 as the youngest researcher there. She is grateful to have the opportunity to work with world-renowned mathematicians in her fields of interest and has co-authored seven papers in pure math, four of which are published. Due to the significance of her research, she was named a 2021 Davidson Fellows Laureate, one of four chosen to receive a $50,000 scholarship.
Apoorva was featured in NBC's Genius Junior, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, in 2018 for her ability to perform quick computations. She is the recipient of worldwide awards such as the prestigious Spirit of Ramanujan Fellowship and the Steven H. Strogatz Prize for Math Communication for her column, Gems in STEM. She was named a World Science Scholar, one among a select few globally, and is also a recipient of the 2020 Global Child Prodigy Award.
