Tanishq Mathew Abraham
Tanishq Abraham (born June 2003) is an American child genius and a child prodigy with an East Indian ancestry. He joined Mensa at 4 years old.
When Tanishq's younger sister, Tiara Thankam Abraham (born December 2005), became a member of Mensa at 4 years old in 2010, The Two became the youngest siblings to join the high-IQ society. Tanishq and Tiara are the youngest South Asians (by ethnicity) to join Mensa and among the youngest Americans in Mensa. To join Mensa, one needs to score in or above the 98 percentile on a Mensa-approved standardized IQ test. Tanishq scored 99.9 percentile and Tiara scored 99 percentile on the test.
Biography
Born in Sacramento, California, USA, to Bijou Abraham, a software engineer, and his wife Dr. Taji Abraham, a doctor of veterinary medicine, both children showed signs of a high IQ at an early age. Tanishq began to show this when he was a baby. At four months, he would flip the pages of children's story books and could answer questions on the stories and events in the books. At five years old, it took him fewer than six months to complete the math courses offered by Stanford University's Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY) in five grades (kindergarten to 4th grade). At six, he took on-line high school and college level classes in subjects such as chemistry, paleontology, biology, and geology. His prodigious talent became even more evident when, at seven years old, he enrolled at American River College and completed courses in Geology & Astronomy, earning As in both courses and emerging as the top student in both classes. He was the youngest student ever to enroll in on-campus graded courses at the college. During Summer 2011, at 8 years old, he completed an intensive Biotechnology course, earning an A. At the end of the Fall 2012 semester, 9-year-old Tanishq completed AbOUT one-third of the college units needed to graduate with an Associate degree. He also finished a Chemistry course from UC Berkeley (on-line) scoring an A grade. Apart being the top student in several college classes, he has maintained a perfect 4.0 grade point average. In December 2012, he became the member of Phi Theta Kappa.
Despite his clear aptitude for the physical sciences, Tanishq has broad interests. Musically inclined, he has received formal training in piano since he was three and is a chorister with the San Francisco Boys Chorus. His other passions include chess, swimming, dancing and soccer. Because of the challenges his school and the school district have had in meeting his educational needs, Tanishq's parents decided to take on much of the responsibility for educating him. In addition to the classes he is taking at American River College, he is also being home-schooled, and the curriculum involves college courses.
Media - Tanishq was featured in the premier episode of the PRODIGIES show by THNKR, a Youtube educational channel by @radical media. After the release of the show in July 2012, Tanishq has appeared in, local, national and international news media and shows on CNN, ABC, MSNBC, FOX, Yahoo, Huffington Post, etc. Tanishq became the youngest TV medical correspondent for a national syndicated show 'The Doctors' CBS. His first episode aired on September 12, 2012.
Tiara Abraham is the younger sister of Tanishq Abraham. She is a child genius, who at 4 years old joined the American Mensa. At 5 years old her reading skills are close to a 5th grader. Like her older brother Tanishq, she enjoys learning the sciences especially about animals. Tiara is also home schooled by her parents. Just like her brother, she has skipped a grade but working at 3 higher grade levels than her peers. At 6 years old, she has started showing her prodigious talent in education as well. Tiara is a gifted child artist: a painter, sketcher and a singer. Her art work done at 3 and 4 years old, titled, 'My Brother, My Friend' and 'Rainbow Over Lake' has been judged and awarded Honorable Mention at the California State Youth Art & Design Exposition 2011. Her artwork done at 5 years old, titled 'My Unicorn' was judged and awarded Third Place for the acrylic painting category at the California State Youth Art & Design Expo 2011. For the 2012 California State Youth Art & Design Exposition, Tiara won First Place for her acrylic painting 'Golden Gate At Sunset', Third Place for 'Humpty Dumpty' mixed media collage and Honorable Mention for 'Talking Parrot' painting. 6 year old Tiara had her first public sale request for her acrylic painting, 'Golden Gate at Sunset'. Tiara showed her prodigious singing talent at 5 years old, when she began singing vibrato or the opera style which is something that only some adult singers are capable. At 6 years old, she sings several songs, including the American National Anthem In the vibrato style. This style of singing comes naturally for her. In September 2012, she became the youngest to join the performing group of Sacramento Children's Chorus. Apart from her passions of painting and singing, Tiara loves to swim, sprint, read, write and work on the computer. Tiara has been involved in extra-curricular activities such as gymnastics, dancing, soccer, swimming and art classes.
Both children at a young age have taken up volunteering and raising funds for charity. They have actively participated for UNICEF's Trick-or-Treat. Tanishq & Tiara has taken part in the North South Foundation's Science, Spelling and Vocabulary Bees that help raise scholarship money for the need-based gifted students in India. 8-year old Tanishq volunteered for an on-line citizen science project where he helped to find a Supernova, an exoplanet candidate and a solar storm watch in 2011.