Eight Incoming Terps Who Will Make You Cheer

From champion rock climbers and jump-ropers to entrepreneurs and the nation’s top academic achievers, UMD welcomes talented students every fall. This year, more than 28,000 students applied for 4,000 freshman spots, and 7,000-plus for 1,800 transfer spots. Terp magazine found among them students so remarkable, resilient and flat-out interesting that we’re feeling a little outclassed. Meet just eight of these new Terps—including one whose name destined him to become one:

AFSAH AFZAL
Rockville, Md.
Violence never felt far from Afsah as she grew up in Pakistan. A terrorist attack near her school shut it down for a week. School buses were bombed. Her best friend’s father and a teacher’s daughter were killed in blasts. Two and a half years ago, she and her family emigrated to the U.S. She quickly improved her English speaking skills to earn a 4.0 GPA at Montgomery College, then a full scholarship to Maryland. “I never had this recognition for my academic capabilities back home, and I feel like I’m able to help my parents through my scholarship.” She plans to become a doctor, returning to her homeland to help save lives being lost.

BRIAN BAGHERI
Potomac, Md. 
Bagheri cut his leg while playing baseball as a high school junior, but couldn’t get an adhesive bandage to properly fit over the odd-size injury. Today his customizable bandage kit is patent-pending. “It’s a difficult process, but all it takes is one company that thinks the same way as you do to put your products out on the market.”

TATYANA KIRYUTINA
Montgomery Village, Md.
Just about everyone in Kiryutina’s family is a scientist, and she’s gotten an early start: After her first year at Montgomery College, she interned in the chemical engineering department at UMD, and her research on the synthesis of catalysts called zeolites was published in an academic journal. This summer, she worked to determine which nanoparticles are safe for people to use in products through an internship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. “I want to make things to benefit people.”

KATHERINE LIPSIUS
Glenn Dale, Md. 
Lipsius is a member of the Nause-Waiwash tribe based in Dorchester County, Md., and she’s working to earn Native American tribal recognition from the state and sharing and continuing its cultural heritage of hunting, trapping and marsh fishing with youths on the Eastern Shore. And that’s not the only obstacle she’s overcoming: She also has cerebral palsy, and has undergone five surgeries to combat its effects on her joints. She struggles to walk independently, especially in the winter, but the aspiring large-animal veterinarian says, “I have a lot of ambitions for what I want to do in my career.”

MEENA SENGOTTUVELU
Clarksville, Md. 
Sengottuvelu was shocked when she heard about a human-trafficking bust in Baltimore—“I’d always thought that it just happened in other countries, and that I wasn’t at risk of being a victim”—but it moved her to action. After building garden benches for the Samaritan Woman, a nonprofit that helps victims of human trafficking, for her Girl Scout Gold Award, she started her own nonprofit venture, TRUST (Together we Rise Up to Stop Trafficking). She’s interested in policy and legislative work, but her primary goal is to incorporate a lesson on human trafficking into the curriculum of Howard County Public Schools. Then she’ll go on to Maryland schools and nationwide. “We’re making a lot of progress,” she says.

BETEL TEKA
Silver Spring, Md. 
While visiting her father’s native village in Ethiopia before ninth grade, Teka was surprised to see children outside breaking their pencils. When she asked why, they looked at her as if to say, “How else would we have enough pencils for all of us”? She went on to launch a pencil drive at her school and send 5,000 pencils to the village of Tigray. Since then, she’s founded the nonprofit Pencil Power to benefit schoolchildren in the country, supplying paper or pens or even chairs for students who now sit on dirt floors in class. She’s now sent over 10,000 pencils and more than $8,000 to the elementary school in Tigray. “I can’t wait to come to Maryland and make this into a bigger organization.”

ALFRED “JERRY” TERP
Gaithersburg, Md.
Every time Terp sat through roll call with a new teacher, he heard the same line: “’Terp!?’ You’ve got to go to the University of Maryland!” Raised as a military brat in Germany, Washington State and Texas, Terp never realized the significance of his last name until his family moved to Maryland when he entered high school. Now officially a Terp, Terp says of UMD, “I’m just excited to be a part of everything.”

ASHLEY ELLIS
Mount Airy, Md.
Ellis became the first woman in 33 years to earn a gold medal from the International Jugglers Association in 2013, mixing a lifetime of dance and baton-twirling lessons with humor and pizzazz. She made throwing five batons look easy, thanks to early lessons from the UMD Jugglers club starting when she was 12 years old. A transfer student from Frederick Community College, she says, “I’m looking forward to getting more actively involved on campus and with the club again!”