2015 Winners of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award

Outstanding Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award/ Po Chun and Chien Pin Tsang Outstanding Award: Jessica Ma (馬洁心) is the senior editor-in-chief of Northview High School’s newsmagazine, The Messenger, as well as president of her school’s National Honor Society chapter. She is also the captain of Atlanta Professional Dance Academy’s Jasmine Flowers dance team, quarterfinalists on Season 9 of America’s Got Talent. In her free time, she enjoys dancing, writing, and blogging, while also dabbling in cooking, photography, and piano on the side. A feminist, chronic coffee drinker, and avid foodie, Jessica loves to engage in new cultural experiences and hopes to travel around the world in the future.

Outstanding Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award/ Po Chun and Chien Pin Tsang Outstanding Award: Justin Chu (朱伯穎) is a senior at Alpharetta High School. He was born to a Taiwanese family in Ottawa, Canada, and later moved to Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 2. Justin has a strong passion for the STEM fields, exhibited by awards in regional science fairs and math competitions, as well as other achievements. He aims to demonstrate the importance of the STEM fields and career path by advocating for the education of students in mathematics and technology starting from a young age. He plans to major in chemical engineering in college.

Excellence Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award/ Po Chun and Chien Pin Tsang Outstanding Award: Annie Su (蘇 安 妮 ), 17 years old, is a senior at Johns Creek High School. She has been playing the violin for eight years and has participated in various youth orchestras, including Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra and Emory Youth Symphony Orchestra. She also dances with Atlanta Professional Dance Academy and has been featured shows like America’s Got Talent and Hunan TV. Annie involves herself in the community through tutoring peers, visiting nursing homes, and volunteering at local library and Emory Hospital. She is the co-director of Hand-in-Hand, a youth-led organization dedicated to providing closeness to Chinese heritage for Chinese adoptees. In her free time, Annie enjoys indie cinema and animation film, reading, and video blogging.

Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award/ Outstanding Community Service Award: Michelle Tzeng (曾 美 瑜 ) is a junior at Johns Creek High School. She enjoys drawing and hiking. Her favorite color is blue, and she plays the flute in her leisure time. She participates in cross country in the fall and runs track in the spring. While Michelle is passionate about giving back to the community through volunteer service clubs, she also has an interest in the sciences and aspires to be a doctor.

2015 Winners of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award

Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award/ Outstanding Inspirational Award: Emma Tsaur (曹 蘋 ), 17 years old, is a senior at Northview High School. In her free time, she enjoys drawing, painting, and playing the flute. Emma is fun-loving and energetic; she enjoys seeking new adventures and quickly grows bored doing the same thing. She loves hiking, swimming, running, and snowboarding. Emma has a pet dog named Snuffles (which she named herself).

Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award/ Inspirational Award: Joseph Pang (龎子龍) is a senior at Northview High School. He is the founder of Plaeto.com and a winner of the Georgia Technology Fair in Project Programming. Having been intrigued by math at a young age, Joseph was the 1st place team winner of MATHCOUNTS in state level and an AMC winner. He is also an accomplished musician, playing violin as a member of the ASYO for four years. As the president/founder of Northview Guide Club, Joseph dedicates time for math tutoring services to underprivileged students at the Gwinnett Human Service Center. In his free time, he enjoys reading, writing code, playing basketball, and gaming.

Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award/ Outstanding Leadership Award: Jessica Li (李玢) is a senior at Johns Creek High School. Her peers would describe her as mature, thorough, devoted, and reliable. Jessica lives by the following maxim: “if I do it, I do it well.” She possesses not only a strong work ethic, but also an active mind that produces deep artistic expression and surfaces during intellectual discussion. She is an artist, expressing through dance, piano, graphic design, cuisine, and photographs; a mixture of Chinese and American culture and speaker of English, Chinese, French, and Spanish; and a leader both in and out of school.

Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award/ Outstanding Special Talent Award: Connie Xu (徐 子 翔 ) is a senior at Northview High School. She is extremely passionate towards creating art and wishes to pursue those passions in her career. Connie mostly makes graphic art inspired by the likes of Matisse, Warhol, Peter Max, Yayoi Kusama and the Bauhaus school. However, she also enjoys graphic design and designing and constructing garments. Connie’s other passions include fashion, music, history, French, and calculus.

2015 Winners of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award

Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award/ Special Talent Award: Derek Wu (吳嘉棟) is a senior at Alpharetta High School. He is a swimmer who spends about 20 hours a week in the pool training for swimming. For the future, Derek plans on majoring in STEM in college, while continuing his swimming career in hopes of winning an NCAA championship. In his free time, Derek enjoys playing video games and spending time with friends.

Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award/ Outstanding STEM Award: Tiffany Hsieh (謝 欣 霖 )is a senior at Johns Creek High School in Johns Creek, Georgia. She is interested in pursuing a career in Mechanical Engineering. Tiffany is the President of the Technology Student Association and captain of the robotics club at her school, and an NCWIT Aspirations Georgia Affiliate and National Runner Up winner. She participated in the Stanford Institutes of Medicine Research Program, working in a genetics lab and researching differential gene expression of T-cells.

Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award/ Outstanding Monte Jade Award: Samuel Cai (蔡陽) is a senior at Northview High School. The one word he would use to describe himself is diverse. He prides himself on having interests across many different fields. In addition to extreme dedication to academic pursuits, he is also a member of Northview’s varsity tennis team and has played piano for over 10 years. Samuel is a member of many different clubs in school, including Beta, FBLA, HOSA, Student Government, and several National honor societies. He plans to pursue a career in medicine and hopes to become an oncologist or a geneticist someday.

Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award/ Excellence Monte Jade Award: Irena Kuan (管 正 欣 ) is a senior at Walton High School. She is president of her school’s Global Connections Club and is also an active member in many clubs and organizations, including National Honor Society, Beta Club, Science Club, and Environmental Club. Her musical hobbies include playing piano and flute and finding obscure playlists on Spotify. As an ex-ballerina, she still enjoys doing yoga for fun and exercise, and she greatly enjoys skiing with her family in the winter. You can often find Irena studying physics with friends at Starbucks or up until 2 a.m. finishing math homework

2015 Winners of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award

Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award: Michelle Liu (刘 洁 芸 ) is a junior at Northview High School. Apart from maintaining a high GPA, she participates in various competitions. Michelle is an avid flutist and participates in school band and many prestigious orchestras. She is involved in Student Council, the Secretary of UNICEF Club, and participates in many other clubs. Outside school, she’s heavily involved in community service and attends mission trips with her church youth group. She plans to pursue science and/or music and hopes to use her talents to make a difference in the world.

Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award: Nicholas Manning (董 尼 克 ) is a senior at Northview High School. He enjoys playing tennis, folding origami, playing piano, and skiing. He is involved in many community service activities outside of school where he teaches in academic and nonacademic subjects. He teaches ACT at Carver High School, origami to seniors at Ivy Hall, and tennis to little kids. He is interested in business and architecture and hopes to pursue these areas in college.

Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award: Alexander Chang Moldenhawer (張 育 立 ) is a senior at Lambert High School, former president of his school’s Technology Student Association, and an overall well-rounded student. He has already taken and excelled at eight advanced placement exams, earning him the AP Scholar with Distinction Award. He runs cross-country and track, is a member of four of his school’s national honors societies, plays Taiwanese drums for multiple Asian events in the Atlanta area, and has worked in Georgia Tech labs for a biosynthetic engineering club. He is currently most interested in computer science and plans on working in management information systems.

Winner of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award: Tony Zhang (張 俊 杰 ) is a junior at Alpharetta High School. Tony grew up under the care of two loving yet strict parents who pushed him to achieve as much as he can. He developed a strong work ethic from the example his parents set. That, along with his competitive nature which led him to try to outdo his friends, helped him accomplish more than he ever thought he would years ago, in academics as well as extracurricular activities such as piano. Tony is also an aspiring engineer, an interest that he developed from his father.

2015 Winners of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award

Honorable Mention of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award: Aaron Hui (許 穎 濤 ) is a senior at Northview High school. He was born in San Jose, California. His father grew up in Hong Kong, while his mother grew up in Taiwan. Both of his parents moved to the U.S. to study. They moved to Georgia in 2006. He has been playing the cello for eight years, and he is currently the sub-team leader for CAD (computer-aided design), where he designs competition robots as well as teaches other members robotics design.

Honorable Mention of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award: Justin Lin (林 鈺 傑 ) is a senior at Johns Creek High School and interested in the studies of discourse and writing. He looks to utilize the power of words as the tool of choice throughout his life. Taking as many classes and studies of the highest level available that he can manage, he hopes to acquire enough insight on many facets of intellectual study so he can say something worth listening to about anything. He has claimed his ticket for the brain train, and he doesn’t know how far it will take him.

Honorable Mention of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award: Shelley Ling (凌 雪 麗 ) is a junior at Johns Creek High School. While maintaining an excellent academic record, Shelley has been the co-president of FBLA since sophomore year. She went to nationals twice being a finalist in the national for Entrepreneurship and 10th in the nation for Global Business. She is also a member of beta club, debate, and lifetime squash league, and has won various awards and trophies from debate and squash competitions. Shelley is also active in her church’s youth group: she is the leader of the welcoming team and has been to the Nashville mission trip for the past three years.

Honorable Mention of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award: Austin Liou ( 劉 天 偉 ) is a senior at Lovett School. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Austin is on the Headmaster’s list, in the National Honor society, and a representative of the Lovett Honor council. He is also the lead violinist in the Lovett School chamber Orchestra, the Bach Ensemble, and the Metropolitian Youth Symphony Orchestra. Austin is the current LEO Club co-Advisor and has been an active member for over 8 years. He is an avid baker and is the President of Baking for a Cause. He will be graduating from Chinese Cultural School this year where he has attended every Saturday since he was 4.

2015 Winners of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award Honorable Mention of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award:

Peter Vuong (王志強), 16 years old, is a junior at Dunwoody High School. He’s taking his 8th AP class this year and 2 Academy courses. He attends Dunwoody High School Chinese School of Atlanta, and has attended Anh Ban Mai Vietnamese School. He is fluent in 5 languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, English, and Spanish. He holds a part time job and has worked for over 2,300 hours and done countless of volunteer activities. He’s in 5 National Honor Societies with 21 other clubs, and he has held 8 officer positions. While time ticks, his ambitions for college evolve tremendously.

Honorable Mention of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award: Melody You (游 若 雨 ) is a senior at Johns Creek High school, where she is an honor roll student. She is also the photography editor of her high school newspaper, The Chariot, and a staff writer for an Atlanta-based newspaper organization, VOX Teen Communications. She has played the piano for 12 years, and has graduated all piano performance levels with merit and distinction from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. She plans to study communications or marketing in college.

Honorable Mention of MJSTASE Young Achiever Award: Joanne Zheng (鄭 喬 安 ) is a senior at Northview High School. She is fluent in two languages, Chinese and English, and is working on her third, French. Joanne enjoys reading, painting, and learning new things in her free time. At school, she is a straight-A student and president of two clubs, Beta Club and Art Club. She also teaches a youth art class at Ocee Library. Joanne is a firm believer in STEM and the healing properties of art and music. She hopes to combine all her interests in a career that will one day make a difference in the world.