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Is there anything Alena Analeigh McQuarter can’t do? At age 13, she made history as the youngest Black person ever to be accepted into medical school in the United States. Now three years later at age 16, she is a proud member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. McQuarter is a spring 2025 initiate of the Lambda Nu Sigma Chapter in Toronto, Canada.
At the age of 12, she graduated high school and enrolled at Arizona State University, initially focusing on chemistry and astronomy and planetary science. As the youngest intern ever to work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, she pursued her career goal of becoming a NASA engineer during her internship.
After a life-changing trip to Jordan with her nonprofit organization, Brown STEM Girl, she shifted her focus to medicine. She changed her major to pre-med with a focus on viral immunology after being moved by the inequities in health throughout the world. Through the Burroughs Wellcome Scholars Early Assurance Program, the Heersink School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham extended an early admission offer to her in 2022.
However, Alena's influence goes far beyond her academic accomplishments. As the creator of Brown STEM Girl, she has established a platform that offers mentorships, scholarships, and chances for study abroad to encourage girls of color in STEM fields.
She has received both national and international recognition for her innovative work, including
· Forbes 30 Under 30 (Nominee, 2021)
· TIME and Nickelodeon’s Kid of the
· Year (Finalist, 2022)
· Global Child Prodigy Awards – World in Science (Recipient, 2022)
· President’s Volunteer Service Lifetime Achievement Award (Recipient, 2022)
· Ebony HBCU STEM Queen (Recipient, 2022)
As a member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., McQuarter is now breaking down boundaries and creating futures while embodying the values of sisterhood, scholarship, and service.
Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. was founded on November 12, 1922, in Indianapolis, Indiana, on the campus of Butler University by seven educators. Although the smallest sorority of the Divine 9, Sigma Gamma Rho, has chapters all over the country and the world. There are over 100,000 members in the organization, both domestically and internationally, with over 500 chapters in the US, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Virgin Islands, Canada, Germany, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and its newly chartered chapter in Tokyo, Japan.
