Fresh Faces for Fall 2024

Mathea Abiara
What started out as a few free samples at Mathea Abiara’s 16th birthday dinner quickly ramped up into a full-fledged body care business. Her guests loved her natural, handmade body butters and scrubs enough for her to launch Body Essentials by Abiara out of her Glen Burnie, Md., home, balancing the company’s day-to-day with her rigorous International Baccalaureate course load, involvement in the Spanish Honor Society and National Honor Society, serving as a personal project supervisor for IB Middle Years Programme students, and volunteering at her church. In addition to BEBA, Abiara recently launched Abi Techniques, a business that offers graphic design services and showcases her makeup artistry. For some of her most popular products, like the Sweet Vanilla Cream Body Butter, she sources Shea Butter from her home country of Nigeria. “After I started seeing people actually like the products that I worked hard for, that I ethically sourced ingredients for, that I formulated myself, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I really like this,’” she said. The business management and finance major looks forward to networking on campus as she grows the companies.

Derrick Antwi
While neuroscience major Derrick Antwi has his sights set on medical school, he’s also focusing—literally—on his own budding business. The Prince George’s County native founded his photography and graphic design company, Double Vision Media, his junior year of high school, starting out by snapping shots at sports games and evolving into lifestyle shoots with clients across the DMV. “I’ve been able to work with different photographers, fashion models, and do things that I didn’t really think were possible before,” he said of the three-person business, which he hopes to expand through involvement in a campus photography club. Antwi is also an activist, lobbying for educational equity through the Youth Activism Project. And his latest endeavor, a new group called Afrovision, brings DMV residents together to embrace their African roots and culture through community events. “We want to help people feel more comfortable and confident in their identity,” he said.

Dia Bonsu
Dia Bonsu is a firm believer in the “A” in STEAM—adding “art” to the regular science, technology, engineering and mathematics—and her accomplishments as both a musician and aspiring mathematician have paid off to the tune of over $400,000 in awards and merit-based scholarship offers. The applied math major from White Plains, Md., credits her longtime involvement in programs like Destination Imagination, which challenges teams to creatively tackle STEAM problems, for her success, with her group twice placing in the top 30 globally. The valedictorian of Elizabeth Seton High School was also the co-editor-in-chief of Gxrls in STEM magazine as well as a two-time all-state percussionist. She recently interned at both the DMV Percussion Academy and the Aerospace Corp., and she wrote an article about her experiences that was published in the 2023 book, “Launchpad to Success: 21 Ways for Teens to Prepare for Their Dream Careers.” “Because I love music as much as I love math and STEM, I knew that UMD would be the best choice for me because they are all around a very strong school,” she said.

Donovan Fry
Donovan Fry calls himself “hyper-interested” in weather, sparking him to do his part to tackle the grand challenge of climate change. As a member of James Hubert Blake High School’s service organization called the Leaders Institute, he lobbied for Montgomery County Public Schools to restore an unused greenhouse. Now filled with native plants, the spruced-up space will be used for courses like AP Environmental Science, and it led Blake to earn Maryland Green School status. “I really wanted to get the greenhouse fixed up, because if we can start making other people passionate about it and making them aware of what’s going on, I thought that could make a difference,” said Fry, who’s majoring in atmospheric and oceanic science. On campus, he’s excited to research links between weather and sustainability and meet people with similar interests in clubs like the American Meteorological Society at UMD.

Connor Grabowski
While Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky dominated the 2024 Paris Games this summer, the Olympics have meant something more to Connor Grabowski. Throughout high school, the North East, Md., native was paired as an able-bodied player with Special Olympics athletes to play an adjusted version of tennis at practices, scrimmages and even state competitions. Grabowski’s experience with his young brother, who has a disability similar to cerebral palsy, helped inspire his passion for advocating for the disabled community, but his involvement began even before his sibling was born. “It was a great way to connect with people who are often ostracized and neglected in a lot of public spaces,” he said. The studio art major has also championed diversity and inclusion in his pieces, earning honorable mention in a state coloring book competition for an illustration depicting people of various abilities and contributing to his school’s mural with a similar concept.

Morgan Grant
Whether she’s sprinting to the finish line or researching mental health, Morgan Grant thrives when challenging herself. The Rockland County, N.Y., native started competing in triathlons as a seventh grader, and after winning her age group in her first local race, “I knew it was the sport for me,” she said. Last year, she placed in the top 10 in her age group at the Texas Multisport Festival, qualifying to compete with Team USA in Spain. When she wasn’t racing or training, Grant, a biochemistry major, could be found in the lab, using virtual reality to analyze anxiety symptoms. After consulting with doctors from Columbia University, she showed more than 30 teachers at her school nature scenes through a VR headset, finding that all but one saw their moods improve. In addition, she was a dedicated member of her school’s Black Culture Club and equity committee, fostering important conversations about race.

Jenna Hauer
Ever since she first stepped onto the ice at a “Mommy and Me” class at 3 years old, Jenna Hauer has been gliding her way to success as an international ice dancer. Originally from Northern Virginia, she moved to Connecticut and switched to online school in sixth grade to accommodate her rigorous training schedule with her partner; they landed a Team USA assignment in 2022 and a spot at Junior Worlds. In addition, she started coaching in 2021, and, inspired by her sister on the autism spectrum, she’s worked with and performed for Special Olympics athletes. Now, while Hauer is taking a break from international events, she hopes to join the Maryland Figure Skating Club as she studies business at UMD. “My life’s been so oriented toward skating—and I still want to keep that in my life—but I want to find additional things that make me who I am,” she said.

Abigail Heng
Terp travelers stopping at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport might have caught an early glimpse of a future classmate—or at least an acrylic paint version of her. During her junior year, Silver Spring, Md., native Abigail Heng’s self-portrait was selected among pieces by other Maryland students for an exhibition at the bustling travel hub. The architecture major’s work has also hung in the BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown, Md., with one of her watercolors earning a spot alongside other Montgomery County artists. “I like mixing abstract elements with realism and experimenting with contrasting styles,” she said. In addition, she received the MCPS Superintendent’s All County Fine Arts Award in 2D visual arts, and her achievements led her to become an aide in her school’s AP art class. She plans to expand on that experience through art clubs at UMD, as well as through architecture groups for women and Hispanic students.

Anirudh Mantha
Thanks to Anirudh Mantha’s research, an idea to help a visually impaired friend has turned into a patent-pending accessibility solution. While at a Model United Nations conference in Washington, D.C., Mantha and his team noticed how challenging crossing the city’s busy streets would be for someone with limited vision. They came up with CoCA (Connected Crosswalk Assistance), a smart walking cane that allows users to remotely activate crosswalk signals right from the cane itself, “like a selfie stick,” Mantha said. The technology ranked in the top five in the health and nutrition category at an international innovation competition, and the research behind the cane was published in Social Science Research Network. While awaiting the patent, the Northern Virginia native spent the summer interning for the Department of Defense, using machine learning to identify trends in data. Now majoring in computer science at UMD, he plans to get involved in the IDEA Factory, Smith Investment Fund and other organizations to help elevate CoCa—or his next startup. “I could use this experience by coming up with a new idea in these clubs and then taking that to the next level,” he said.

Evelyn Murphy
For multisport athlete Evelyn Murphy, fueling up for games often meant downing a protein bar packed with added sugar. “The more I looked around, I realized, ‘Oh my gosh, so many of these health food products are not as good as they’re advertised to be,’” she said. Now, she’s aiming to hit the sweet spot with simple, natural ingredients through her energy bites company, Energy by Evelyn. She took a gap year after high school to launch the business, starting out by cooking up the 1-ounce morsels in her Easton, Md., home, with flavors including chocolate, lemon ginger, and peanut butter and jelly. Once she’d made her first sales, she paid her parents, the owners of Smith Island Baking Co., a fraction of her profits to move production to their Crisfield, Md., facility. Now, the economics major and Banneker/Key scholar is excited to learn more about running a company from peers with similar goals, and she’s already been in touch with coaches and nutritionists on campus to bolster her business.