Photos courtesy of Paradise Valley Unified School District
Paradise Valley High School Senior and CREST student Tej Desai was selected as one of the five Arizona nominees for the 2022-2023 U.S. Presidential Scholars in Career and Technical Education honor. This program recognizes and celebrates distinguished graduating high school seniors and is one of the nation’s highest honors for high school students. Desai was selected based on his technical competency, professional employability, skills, ingenuity, creativity, and for maintaining high achievement in rigorous classes.
As one of the five Arizona nominees or semi-finalists in this honor’s selection process, Tej was selected by Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman, who submitted his nomination to the Commission on Presidential Scholars at the U.S. Department of Education. This month, Desai will be invited to apply for national review by the Commission on the Presidential Scholars at the U.S. Department of Education. He will find out in May if he is one of 20 students selected as a national winner after being showcased later this year by the Arizona Department of Education.
Additionally, last November, Desai was selected to be part of the Student Discovery Zone Challenge Scholarship by The Arizona Bioindustry Association (AZBio) a not-for-profit, trade association supporting the growth of Arizona’s life science sector.
He submitted his work from his summer research through KEYS at U of A: Use of the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center Data to Examine Normative Cognitive Aging, explaining the research process and findings that industry leaders judged, resulting in him winning first place in the high school student group with a scholarship of $1000.00. The award was presented to him by Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego.
