Meet the Rising Heroes of 2025

CSEdWeek Team
Dec 7, 2025
2 min read

We invited our 2025 CS Heroes to each nominate a student they would consider a "computer science rising hero"—someone who creates a positive impact, inspires others through leadership, drives progress with innovation, demonstrates resilience, and uplifts their community through equity and service.

For the first time, we aren't just celebrating CS professionals—we're also looking to the students shaping the future of computing. These Rising Heroes were nominated for their creativity, perseverance, and passion for using technology to make a difference. Nominated with the 2025 theme in mind, these young change-makers help us discover how computer science powers AI innovation, both today and in the future.

Each student was asked to submit a video about how computer science inspired them to build, innovate, or make a positive impact through technology or AI. We hope their answers inspire you to use AI to take action within your own community—no matter your age.

Angela Ngoc Nguyen

School: Stanford University

City/State: Standford, CA

Angela's innovative application of computational data science towards AI ethics and policy has had a positive impact on her community in the Bay Area and in Minnesota, particularly for minoritized communities and migrants affected by tech-powered surveillance. Her work spans multiple disciplines, from applying data visualizations to managing FOIA requests in order to surface valuable information to the public on how license plate scanners are being leveraged by law enforcement in varying neighborhoods and municipalities.

Michelle Marfo

School: Osbourn Park High School

City/State: Manassas, VA

Michelle's independent research on social media usage patterns amongst her peers is incredibly relevant to understanding how technology shapes youth mental health. I am inspired by how Michelle learned and applied sentiment analysis in her study of Instagram notes, as well as her project applying AI towards computational biology for social good.

Ilana Nguyen

School: Brown University

City/State: Providence, RI

Ilana's research shines a light on how technology impacts immigrant communities, particularly those hailing from Global Majority nations. Her work has advanced the scholarly discourse on diverse sociotechnical areas, ranging from identifying harms in using LLMs for creative writing to studying the sociology of border technologies.