PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A joint effort of the US Chess Trust, US Chess (Federation), and the National Scholastic Chess Foundation.

US Chess and the US Chess Trust announce the five recipients of the 2020 Scholar-Chessplayer Awards. These awards recognize high school juniors and seniors who excel in academics, chess and leadership.

The 2020 winners will receive five equal $3,000 scholarships, totaling $15,000.

All of the involved organizations offer a big, “Thank you!” to Dewain and Susan Barber, whose generosity made it possible to double the scholarships for this year. Another vote of thanks goes to the three scholastic committee members who reviewed all the applications.

The recipients are (in alphabetical order):

Praveen Balakrishnan, VA (Grade 12)

David Brodsky, NY (Grade 12)

Akira Wood Nakada, NY (Grade 11)

Kimberly Liu, CA (Grade 12)

Annie Wang, CA (Grade 12)

Congratulations to all of the players!

To qualify, applicants must be US Chess members and are required to:

1. Play at least 25 regular-rated US Chess or FIDE games during the current academic year;
2. Show outstanding achievement in academics and chess;
3. Have completed at least one year of chess-related community service since starting the 9th grade;
4. Describe in an essay of 500 words how being selected as a 2020 Scholar-Chessplayer will enable the recipient to further their education, improve their chess, and allow them to continue contributing to the chess community.

Past Recipients:

2019

Forest Chen, TN
Albert Liang, GA
Emily Nguyen, TX
Jennifer Yu, VA
Howard Zhong, OK

2018

Abhimanyu Banerjee, FL
Maggie Feng, OH
Craig Hilby, CA
Seth Talyansky, OR
Andrew Tang, MN

2017

Ethan Li (NY)
Zhaozhi (George) Li (IL)
Prateek Pinisetti (AZ)
Joshua Sheng (CA)
Warren Wang (NY)

2016

IM Safal Bora, MI
WIM Agata Bykovtsev, CA
IM Akshat Chandra, NJ
IM Daniel Gurevich, GA
NM Christopher Yang, PA

2015

Jackson Chen, CO
Rachel Gologorsky, FL
Simone Liao, CA
Akshay Malhotra, TX
Darwin Yang, TX

2014

Jeevan Karamsetty, VA
Varun Krishnan, CA
Aleksandr Ostrovskiy, NY
Arthur Shen, NJ
Atulya Shetty, MI

2013

Miles Hinson, NY
Anna Matlin, NJ
Kevin Mo, PA
Benjamin Tong, CA
Thomas Ulrich, WI

2012

Yang Dai, VA
Joshua Mu, NC
Andrew Ng, NJ
Jesse Orlowski, CA
Alexandra Weiner, CT

2011

Chaz Daly, FL
Andrew Ng, NJ
Eigen Wang, NY
Kevin Zhang, AZ
Andrew Shvartsman, NJ

2010

Rohan Agarwal, CA
Richard Herbst, CO
Abby Marshall, VA
Jake Miller, NY
Victor Shen, NJ

2009

Adithya Balasubramanian, VA
Robert Lau, HI
Haotian Zheng, CT
Michael Thaler, NY
Troy Daly, FL

2008

Sarkis Agaian, NY
Jonathan Cox, AZ
Benjamin Marmont, AZ
Michael Sobin, NJ
Adam Weser, NY