Who We Are

See what drives us and meet our team of devoted students striving to make a difference in the lives of the next generation of computer scientists!

Our Mission

What We Stand For

Educate, Empower, Inspire, Change

GCL was founded in 2015 to make emerging technology education accessible to all students, regardless of gender, race, or socioeconomic status. We support students through hands-on learning and connecting educators to resources, to bridge the education gap at its root for generations to come. Our goal is to enact long-term change.

Our Values

Educate

Project-based learning is at the core of our mission in an effort to focus on equipping the next generation with a strong theoretical foundation supplemented with impactful mini-projects to explore.

Our Values

Empower

We bring our innovative AI summits and learn-to-teach programs to HBCUs, low-income centers, and Latinx communities. Everyone deserves a chance at a high-quality STEM education, and not only do we provide that to students identifying with minority groups in technology, but we guide them to become teachers, leaders, and changemakers on their own.

Our Values

Inspire

While we support students in learning the fundamentals, our focus is identifying emerging areas of computer science and technology to teach in a simple, accessible way and starting conversations about to bring diverse perspectives and fair and equitable development to technology.

Our Values

Change

Ultimately, we partner with a host of companies to ensure that there is a strong, diverse, and knowledgeable future workforce educated and equipped to make an impact

National Leadership

Emily Ocasio

Chief Executive Officer

Emily is a high school student at the New School of Northern Virginia (Class of 2023). She developed the 1000 Schools and GCL Scholars programs and currently leads all program operations. She believes machine learning and computer science are powerful tools and works to incorporate them into social justice fields. She conducted research on racial bias in newspapers using natural language processing and in 2022 alone she was chosen as an Atlas Fellow, T-Mobile Changemaker Challenge Winner, HSF-YLI scholar and a Diamond Challenge Semifinalist. Additionally she spends her time reading about Puerto Rican history, at the doctors office, or with her one-eyed 11 year old bunny.

Kavya Kopparapu

Founder, CEO (2015-2022)

Kavya Kopparapu is a junior at Harvard and the Founder/CEO of GirlsComputingLeague. Kavya has worked in the intersection of AI/ML and healthcare for the past four years, earning her as one of TIME’s Most Influential Teens, WebMD’s Health Heroes, and Glamour Magazine’s College Woman of the year. She has a patent on a precision medicine platform for glioblastoma and has been featured by Forbes, Tech Crunch, Refinery 29, and IEEE Spectrum.

Maria Izzi

Chief Operating Officer

Maria is a sophomore at Duke, and has been part of GCL since 2016. She handles many of the operations between teams and departments, and helps connect people within the organization. She works a lot with the branding and internal departments. Maria is studying computer science, and has a specific interest in computer vision. Outside of classes, she enjoys cooking, playing with her bunny Frankie, and trying new things!

Rishitha Tamma

Chief Strategy Officer

Sairishitha Tamma is a freshman at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and is the Chief Strategy Officer in GCL. She currently works with the Finance, Partnerships, Workshops, and AI summits initiatives to organize sponsorships and partnerships as well as plan large scale events such as summits. Outside of GCL, she is a social media marketing intern, who is passionate about learning and advocating. Other then that, she works on her passion projects as she runs a podcast talking about her and other’s experiences as Indians growing up in America, and has rediscovered her love for singing.

Nikhil Pesaladine

Chief Technology Officer

Nikhil is a senior at TJHSST, and has been working with GCL for almost six years. He is currently the Chief Technology Officer, and he works on GCL events and all technical aspects of the organization. Outside of GCL, he is the captain of his school’s math team, and enjoys playing soccer and cooking.

Ashley Raigosa

Senior Advisor

Ashley Raigosa is a Stanford CS student for the class of 2026. She has interned at Intel for ML, been published in AI, and has placed as a NCWIT National winner, first in the International AI Fair, and global nominee in the NASA Space Apps Challenge. Overall, she enjoys sharing her passion for CS and hopes to collaborate with those of diverse backgrounds!

Nidhi Challa

Chief Innovation Officer

Nidhi Challa is a senior at the University of Maryland, graduating in December 2022, majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. As the Chief Innovation Officer at GirlsComputingLeague she’s involved with the newsletter team and the internal team organization. Outside of GCL she is involved with various tech clubs on campus, internships and programming projects. She also spends her free time running and hiking.

Directors

Sanjana Sharvirala

Head of Recruiting

Sanjana Sharvirala is currently a junior at Lightridge High School and is the Head of Recruiting at GirlsComputingLeague. As a national team member she helps oversee member recruitment and involvement. Aside from GCL Sanjana pursues her passion for STEM through FTC and leading her schools Science Olympiad team. Dancing is her outlet and she’s also very involved with her community.

Minjeong (Sunny) Kim

Director of the GCL Scholars Program

Minjeong Kim is a student at Monta Vista High School (CO’ 2023). As the Director of the GCL Scholars Program at GirlsComputingLeague, she works with her team to support scholars as they develop curriculum and host workshops for underprivileged K-12 students. Aside from GCL, Minjeong enjoys developing human-centered machine-learning projects and exploring new cafes with her friends.

Mridhula Srinivasan

Director of the Chapters Program

Mridhula is currently a student at Purdue University. I am the Director of the Chapters Program. I am looking forward to meet and work with students passionate about STEM. I really like learning and experimenting with AI and ML algorithms to improve efficiency in different sectors. I love dancing and learning to dance different styles. I want to empower young girls to pursuit technology-related careers and passions.

Nishi Kaura

Director of Workshops

Nishi is attending UC Berkeley as a Data Science and Computer Science major. She is the founder of ChiCode, an international youth led non profit organization that aims to dismantle societal barriers faced by minority groups through creating accessible opportunities through tech. Nishi is enthusiastic about leveraging technology for social impact and is an advocate for technology driven growth.

Elizabeth Hu

Director of Partnerships

Elizabeth studies CS and Economics at Columbia University and will graduate in 2025. She is also the Founder of PeddieHacks and is currently on the organizing team for DivHacks. She hopes to continue using her passion for CS to empower other young women to become more involved in tech. In her free time, she loves running, watching movies, and spending time with her family, friends, and guinea pig.

Miranda Scardina

Director of Membership

Miranda is a high schooler graduating from Westlake High School in 2023. She is a senior designer on the FRC Robotics team, 2468, and uses 3D design software to create mechanisms for a robot. She also knows 7 programming languages, and uses them to code games, make websites, and for her personal coding projects that experiment with computer vision, A.I, and VR.

Amrah Rahji

Director of the 1000 Schools Program

Amrah is an Innovation Academy 2025 student. She is the Director of 1000 schools and is passionate about bringing STEM education into her community. She is interested in machine learning, programming, artificial intelligence, and robotics. She loves to travel, and learn new things. She also loves playing the clarinet, as well as playing soccer, dancing, and learning languages.

Sathvik Appana

Director of AI Summits

Sathvik Appana (‘24 Lexington High School, MA) is passionate about leveraging CS for social good and DEI. Prior to AI Summits, he helped build “1000 Schools”. Outside GCL, he applies AI to issues in environmental conservation and healthcare. He led nationally ranked STEM teams, hackathons, fundraisers for low-income education, and designed 3D-Printed PPE approved and used hospital-wide by BMC(BU).

Hajirah Nadeem

Director of Finances

Hajirah Nadeem is a freshman at the University of Michigan, intending on pursuing electrical engineering. She is the Director of Finance at GCL, and works to generate funds for several initiatives through grant writing and sponsorships. In her free time, she practices martial arts and enjoys writing, hoping to one day publish a novel.

Specialists

Recruiting

Eseohe Aigberadion

Chapters Specialist

Eseohe Aigberadion is a student at Klein Collins High School graduating May 2023. She is a national Certamen (Classics quiz-bowl) player and a member of her district’s FIRST Robotics team. She has learned HTML, CSS, and JS via summer coding camps.

Samantha Glaser

Volunteer Specialist

Samantha Glaser is currently in the class of 2023 at Glenbrook South High School in Glenview, IL. She is passionate about social justice, quality and accessible education, biomedical engineering, and getting girls and other underrepresented groups involved in STEM. In her free time she enjoys playing soccer, reading, baking, coding medical devices, and working on her non-profit.

Outreach and Marketing

Adaya Head

Marketing/Graphic Design Specialist

Adaya Head is a college senior (Dec. ‘23) studying computer science. Her post-graduation plans include becoming a game developer for Nintendo. Outside of school and GCL you can find her drawing for her art blog.

Claire Ryu

Graphic Designer

Hello, my name is Claire Ryu and I am a senior at Ardrey Kell High School. My interests lie primarily at the cross section of women’s rights and computer science. I am passionate about how these two fields can intertwine and lead to a better world for marginalized communities.

Newsletter

Sophia Chau

Creative Specialist

Sophia Chau is a high school senior in North Texas who is not only passionate about technology but also about creating more opportunities for underrepresented and marginalized groups! As a lifelong learner, she often learns new topics, but her primary interest involves utilizing new technological inventions to address inequity within healthcare. Ultimately, she hopes to instill more confidence in young girls of color looking into technology by providing quality learning opportunities through GCL.

1000 Schools

Alejandra Lopez

1000 Schools Specialist

Alejandra Lopez is currently in the class of 2023 at Riviera Preparatory in Miami, Florida. Her passions include art, writing, STEM , and CS. With GCL, she hopes to spread quality and accessible education to her community.

Ava Boyd

1000 Schools Specialist

Ava Boyd is a student at Fusion Academy in the graduating class of 2023. Ava creates the curriculum for the 1000 schools program. She hopes to work with children in her future.

GCL Scholars

Ellie Froslan

GCL Scholars Specialist

Ellie Froslan attends Newport High School in Bellevue Washington, and will be graduating in 2024. She is passionate about Robotics, Engineering and Coding. She dedicates her time to empowering future leaders, with a focus on female who are discounted

AI Summits

Omar Abul-Hassan

Head of Content

Omar Abul-Hassan is a freshman at Stanford University with interests in mathematics, physics, and computer science. He leads a team responsible for curriculum development for all the AI summits, including both chapter-level and national-level. Outside of GirlsComputingLeague, Omar is heavily involved in theoretical computer science, machine learning, and physics research.

Sweta Das

AI Summits Specialist

Sweta Das is a part of the Class of 2023 at Mclean High School. At school, she serves as co president of the Girls Who Code Club and was recently selected as an NCWIT AspireIT Impact Award recipient. She is excited to expand her learning at GCL.

Satvik Matta

AI Summits Specialist

Satvik is in the Class of 2023 at TJHSST and designs interactive workshops as an AI Summit Specialist. His experience ranges from mechanical engineering to machine learning. Outside GCL, he loves to go biking, spend time outside, and fly planes.

Join Our Community

Time To Act

Girls Computing League works hard every day to help students achieve their dreams of entering a technical career field. We work with companies both to create higher education opportunities for students and hunt for mentors willing to support the next generation of computer scientists. However, we are reliant on our global community of enthusiast and activists to bring about true change. To learn more about what we do and to keep up to date with future opportunities, consider signing up for our upcoming newsletter. We will send you occasional updates about the organization and let you know how you can help the next generation of female scientists and engineers. We cannot wait to see what GCL and you can do together.

Join Us

Join Our Newsletter!

We are pleased to present our monthly newsletter! Every month, we will feature a theme relating to the latest technology in the world. By subscribing, you will acquire interesting knowledge about computer science and technology and learn about GCL initiatives.

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