IMD High School Program Alums Win Carnegie Young Leaders Fellowship

Ananya Shah, Serena Pallan, and Zubin Rajesh met during the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy’s summer program for high school students, where they explored how they could use quantitative tools to understand political problems. Even after the program came to an end, their learning and engagement with these issues continued, and along with fellow students Thea Vedula and Angelina Wang, they devised an idea for a mathematical “GerryBuster” to confront gerrymandering  — an idea that won them a place in the inaugural cohort of the Carnegie Young Leaders for Civic Preparedness Fellowship. As one of 100 fellowship teams selected from 300 impressive applications, they are now developing a project that combines approaches from both math and political science to determine if voting districts fairly represent voters. Ananya was recently interviewed for The Renovator newsletter as one of “The Gen Z-ers Saving Democracy,” and she shared about the importance of providing communities with the analytical tools they need to drive change. “I truly believe in the approach of consistently iterating upon and innovating within our democratic systems,” Ananya shared, “and the approach of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks.” IMD looks forward to supporting the fellowship team as they develop their project, and to seeing the impact they continue to have!

Photo credit: The 2025 Carnegie Young Leaders for Civic Preparedness convene, via Institute for Citizens & Scholars