Columbus Academy alumna Audrey Lu ’25 is one of 161 students nationwide (and one of just two Ohioans) named as a 2025 U.S. Presidential Scholar! She is the third Academy graduate in the past seven years to earn the nation’s highest honor for high school students, joining Aniv Ray ’20 and Shreyah Mohanselvan ’18.
Audrey currently enjoys taking math, statistics, computer science and archaeology courses as a freshman at Harvard University. “I’m involved in the Women in Computer Science association and was selected for the Harvard Data Analytics Group, working on data consulting projects for real industry clients,” she told us. “I’m also an active member of the Asian American Dance Troupe, competitive club tennis and Gender Inclusivity in Mathematics.”
In her award application, Audrey named upper school math teacher Dr. Scott Linder as her most influential teacher. “Dr. Linder was my math teacher for AP Statistics and Multivariable Calculus in my sophomore and junior years,” she stated. “I’ve always been drawn to math, but his introduction to statistical methods such as logistic regression showed me how the concepts I learn about can be applied to real-world questions, which was incredibly meaningful.”
According to Dr. Linder, “Audrey is a really gifted student, but I’d say her best academic attribute is her genuine curiosity, manifesting as interest in understanding (and her ability to recognize) connections between seemingly disparate fields. If she’s studying genetics, for example, she'll quickly recognize a role for a Bayesian statistical methodology in generating a phylogenetic tree. In this sense, she’s quite mature and somewhat creative, especially considering her age… and it therefore came as no surprise that she absolutely thrived in her summer research experiences. Audrey has all of the gifts needed for a strong career in academic research (whether that happens in mathematics or a lab science) – most notably preternatural intellectual curiosity.”