Greenwich Country Day School students Mary Chickering ’26 and Kaki Weiksner ’26 were recognized by the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) on April 22 at a ceremony held at Eversource headquarters in Berlin, CT.
Mary is a winner of the 2026 NCWIT Aspirations in Computing High School Award Connecticut Affiliate; Kaki took Honorable Mention.
The award recognizes Connecticut high school girls for their achievements and aspirations in computing and technology fields.
Mary’s award-winning junior thesis involved building a convolutional neural network (AI) to classify DaTSCAN images of patients with Parkinson’s disease. She designed a dual-input model and used visualization tools to demonstrate that the model focused on biologically relevant features. The project was inspired by her grandfather’s experience with the disease.
Kaki’s junior thesis examined the Collatz Conjecture, an unsolved mathematical problem first proposed around 100 years ago that exhibits random behavior. Her project used Python to examine patterns in the Conjecture across multiples, analyzing hundreds of thousands of examples.
“NCWIT recognition puts a student in a community of high-achieving peers and opens doors down the road,” said Gordie Campbell, Computer Science & CAT Chair at GCDS. “This type of honor does so much for a student’s confidence.”
Head of School Adam Rohdie said, “We are so proud of Mary and Kaki! This achievement is a huge testament to their hard work, sharp research and analytical skills, and their ability to present their findings in a compelling way. Their success is a perfect example of what we strive for at GCDS: giving students the opportunity to apply their learning to real-world challenges in a meaningful way.”
The National Center for Women & Information Technology is a nonprofit organization focused on increasing the meaningful participation of girls and women in computing and technology fields. The organization provides resources and research on recruiting and retaining women in tech, runs programs for K-12 and higher education, and supports educators in building more inclusive computer science programs.