She just graduated with distinction, about to start her Ph.D. , she's only 18! and Nigerian.

Chidi-Ogbolu just graduated summa cum laude with distinction from Howard University with a degree in chemical engineering making her the youngest person to graduate from Howard this year and one of the youngest in Howard’s history.18-year-old Nigeria native Nkechinyere Chidi-Ogbolu is not your typical teen but that’s not all for Chidi-Ogbolu.
 She’s now preparing to start a PhD program at the University of California-Davis after the summer ends. She’ll be studying biomedical engineering with a focus on creating and discovering new medicines.I’ve always been interested in the medical field, but I want to have a broader scale of an impact than in treating patients one-on-one. Chidi-Ogbolu said she’s always been the youngest person in her classes. While most students from Nigeria graduate high school at the age of 16, Chidi-Ogbolu finished high school particularly early, at 14, since she skipped 5th grade and attended an accelerated high school. After high school, she left Nigeria for America and enrolled full-time at Howard University, a historically black university and her first-choice school. I thought I would be more comfortable at the age going to a school with more people that looked like me and therefore I could more easily relate to, said Chidi-Ogbolu. Plus, they gave me a full scholarship, so that definitely helped. Leaving her parents in Nigeria was difficult. I spoke to my mom almost every day on the phone for over an hour almost every time. My dad and I talked really often too, Chidi-Ogbolu says, adding that she spent most holidays with her aunts in America. My support system was a very big part of why I was able to stay very grounded during the whole journey, she says. Her friends at Howard were very supportive of her too. Many of her them didn’t initially know how young she was, which gave rise to many moments of surprise. With the blessings of her parents, Chidi-Ogbolu spent the summer after her junior year researching African weather patterns with Professor Paul Ullrich at UC-Davis. While I was there, I decided that grad school was what I wanted to do. She started working on her graduate school applications during her senior year. I can’t say it was stress-free, she jokes. Her hard work paid off on February 7, when she received her acceptance letter from UC-Davis. It was definitely a wonderful moment, she says.