Indian-American student from Chennai makes it to ‘world’s brightest’ list 2nd time

An Indian-American school girl, Natasha Perianayagam is again making headlines as for the second consecutive year she was named in the world’s brightest student list. This list was issued by the US-based Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth and prepared based on the results of above-grade-level tests of 15,300 students from 76 countries.

The 13-year-old Perianayagam is studying in New Jersey’s Florence M Gaudineer Middle School. The University Press release stated that she was honoured for her exceptional performance on the SAT, ACT, School and College Ability Test or similar assessment taken as part of the CTY Talent Search in 2021-22.

Among the students in 2021-22 Talent Search, less than 27 per cent qualified for the CTY ceremony, getting grand or high honours based on their test scores. Perianayagam scored the highest grades among all candidates.

Interestingly, she had taken part in the Johns Hopkins Center For Talented Youth (CTY) test in spring of 2021 when she was a Grade 5 student. Her quantitative and verbal section results levelled with the 90th percentile of advanced Grade 8 performance which saw her making to the honours list that year.

Fond of doodling and reading novels written by JRR Tolkien, Perianayagam’s parents hail from Chennai.