Los Gatos Patch Whiz Kid of the Week—Neela Easwar

Neela Easwar, age 16

School: Senior at

Accomplishments:

• Good Samaritan Hospital Junior Auxiliary Volunteer since 2008.
• S.M.I.L.E. shift leader at Good Samaritan Hospital.
• Treasurer of the Good Samaritan Hospital Auxiliary.
• Junior representative of the charity ACCESS.
• Principal's Scholar 2009, 2010, 2011.
• Scholar of Distinction, , 2009, 2010, 2011
• The World Language Certificate of Excellence in Spanish, 2009, 2010, 2011.
• Third place in the annual Photographic Guild of Los Gatos Educational Foundation Photography Contest in 2011.
• Fives earned on the AP physics C exam, the AP U.S. history exam and the AP English-language and composition exam.
• Straight As in every class taken since kindergarten.
• Avogadro's Excellence in Chemistry Award, 2011.
• Degree of Merit in forensics (speech and debate).
• Gold medal earned in novice debate.
• Won the Society of Women's Engineers Award for Excellency in Science her junior year.
• Has been playing piano for 11 years.
• For her final project last year in AP physics, she and created a rap song about Newtonian gravity as well as the modern theories concerning gravity and the subsequent bending of spacetime as predicted by Albert Einstein. This was accomplished in under 36 hours.
• Volunteers at Walden West summer camp every summer.
• Taking six AP classes at Los Gatos High School.
• Learned and performed classical Hindustani singing for nine years.

Key to Awesomeness:

"The key to awesomeness is to be more like dogs," says Neela, without a moment's hesitation.

Dogs are kind to everyone, never judgmental, and always greet you enthusiastically, "no matter how rough their day has been.

"They are eternally loyal, they are trusting, and they are so unbelievably ecstatic about absolutely everything."

Neela says she's constantly trying to be more like her dog, Shadow, a 7-year-old Australian shepherd. With her six AP class load, she admits to often being stressed out and running on little to no sleep, but she puts on a smile and forges ahead.