Herricks High School valedictorian Meenakshi Krishna set her sights on graduating at the top of her class during her freshman year.
“It was a goal. I’ve always worked toward doing my best,” Krishna said.
Krishna said she drew inspiration for her academic aspiration from her father, Akhilesh Krishna, who is a lawyer and her mother, Kalpana Jain, who is country manager of India and vice president of educational training for New Jersey-based HiTech Systems.
She is graduating Herricks with a 4.17 grade point average, and a number of honors in math and science.
Krishna was named a semifinalist in the annual Intel Science Talent Search earlier this year and a semifinalist in the annual Siemens Competition in Math Science & Technology last fall. Working 12-hour days, six days a week in a bio-medical lab at Yale University over two summers, she focused on ways to reverse impaired blood vessel function associated with several conditions, including diabetes and stroke.
“It shows other people appreciate what you’ve done,” she said of her success in the two competitions.
Krishna said she’s hoping to continue that research in the fall at Harvard University, where she’ll be on a pre-med track in biomedical engineering or molecular biology.
Her study on the effects of iPods on hearing earned her first place honors at the New York State Science Congress this year. She also won consecutive Gold and Bronze Medals in the Al Kalfus Mathematics Research Fair.
She is also an Advanced Placement Scholar with Distinction, a National Honors Society Member and has earned a National Merit Scholarship Commended Award.
But Krishna said her “true passion” lies in community service.
A trip to Nepal during the summer before her freshman year at Herricks inspired to help others. She volunteered as a teachers assistant in the Carmel Convent’s School for Underprivileged Children in India for four weeks during the summer after freshman year.
“It was actually one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. It made me much more appreciative of what I have here,” Krishna said. “It made me set out on this goal for helping these children.”
That same summer she studied Parkinson’s disease in the Wood Laboratory at Oxford University.
As founder and president of the Future Medical Frontiers Club at Herricks, she helped run American Red Cross blood drives and raised funds for the Ronald McDonald House.
Last summer she helped raise $5,000 for the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital by organizing a charity dance show. This summer she’s organizing another dance charity show with high school and college friends as a fundraising coordinator for the Himalayan Development Foundation and Underprivileged Children Educational Programs in Nepal.
She was co-president of the Dance Theater Club at Herricks this year, a club in which she was active throughout high school. She has seven years of training in Bharatanatyan, a classical dance form in the Hindu tradition.
“My interest in dance was sparked when I was six years old,” Krishna said. “Bharatanatyan has helped me learn more about culture because the dance form itself is about different mythological stories.”
She’s also an accomplished violist who has earned high levels of achievement in the New York State School Music Association.
Krishna has another creative outlet in poetry, and has been a regional finalist in the annual Poetry Out Loud competition for the last two years. As president of the poetry club at Herricks, she helped other students submit their work to various literary magazines.
“Ever since I was in sixth grade, writing poetry was a way for me to bond with my grandfather,” she said.
Her grandfather, Sureshwar Shastri, is a professor of literature at the University of Delhi who, she said, also writes verse as an avocation.
Krishna has also been a features editor and staff writer for the Highlander, the Herricks High newspaper. She was also president of the Yoga Club in her senior year, and along with introducing two different forms of yoga practice, initiated a bake sale to raise funds for the Underprivileged Children Educational Programs in Nepal.
“It is a way to calm myself and relax,” Krishna said of her yoga practice.
Krishna said she’s enjoyed her status as valedictorian for the opportunity it’s given her to be of service to her high school peers.
“So many people look up to you and know who you are. Many of my younger peers reach out for me for help and advice,” Krishna said.
Ultimately, she said she may become research doctor – perhaps eventually mentoring students like herself.
