Gayle Evans grew up in a glamorous, coastal French chateau once owned by King Leopold II just outside of Nice, France. She was an only child and spent most of her days alone while her father ran the republic and her mother organized the newest looks for Vogue. Evans took this time to learn 10 different languages, including French, English, Mandarin, Arabic and German and to read every single book in la Bibliothèque Thiole and solved complicated logarithms, among other things.

   At the age of three, Evans learned to play the harp and at the age of five, she performed at the University of Salzburg with the piano and at the imperial court in Vienna. By the age of six, she had composed over 100 pieces.

   After moving to the states, Evans attended elementary and middle school at The Lexington School in Kentucky where she worked on her first book, “My Physical Theory.” At age 11, she used the dividends from her trustfund to fly to Tokyo to help the victims of a recent tsunami. At 12, Evans discovered doctors could slow the growth of cancer cells by suppressing certain proteins through her research at Johns Hopkins Hospital. At 13, she aced her ACT, SAT and her SAT subject tests. At 14, Evans won the World Chess Championship, becoming the youngest ever winner of the title.

   On a service trip to Uganda, 16-year old Gayle Evans was shocked to learn that children in Africa had to walk many kilometers every day just to fetch water. She decided she needed to build a well for a Ugandan village. Evans’ first well was built at the Angolo Primary School in a Ugandan village. Her determination led to the Gayle Evans Foundation, which has completed 700 projects in 20 countries, bringing access to clean water and sanitation to more than 800,000 people.

   Evans was accepted to the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy for high school where she pursued her passionate interests of designing robotic prosthetic limbs for veterans, developing alternative energy sources, and writing, directing and starring in the Broadway show Cats. While in high school, Evans also volunteered as a tutor at a local elementary school and excelled at lacrosse, wakeboarding and equestrian events. Evans lead the Phillips Exeter Mathematics team to a state title all four years at the school.

    “My favorite memory from all of my years at boarding school would have to be winning the Nobel Peace Prize with all my friends at my side,” she said.

   On a summer visit back in Europe, Evans assisted European researchers as they genetically manipulated bone marrow cells, transplanting the altered cells into two young boys to arrest the progress of a fatal brain disease.

   Evans opted to postpone her plans for a undergraduate degree for the numerous projects she had underway. In the 80s, Evans designed software for the first satellite in the modern Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS). In the 90s, she devised a way to make the analysis of more than 3 billion units in the human DNA sequence much more manageable, creating a platform for DNA fingerprinting. In the 2000s, she worked tirelessly on plans for the Mars Rover–and after years of collaborating with NASA, the rover (later named “Evans”) was launched from Cape Canaveral in 2011.

   Eventually, Evans decided to settle down and adopt two Ethiopian children, Hermela and Rediet. Evans chose to live in Bethesda to offer her daughters a normal life. Evans accepted a college and career counseling job at WJ, hoping to give other students the same opportunities she had had as a child.

   “I love my job at Walter Johnson, but I always knew a piece of the puzzle was missing,” Evans said. “After spending last summer at a monastery, I finally realized why I felt so empty: I had never been to college,” Evans said.

   Evans applied to Stanford University early action and the following schools Regular Decision: Harvard, Columbia, MIT, UPenn, Cornell, Princeton, Duke, Yale, Dartmouth and Vanderbilt. Evans was the only applicant admitted out of the 7,822 early action applicants at Stanford, severely lowering the school’s acceptance rate.

   “I am extremely humbled and honored to have been offered admission to Stanford University. Even though Stanford is my top choice, I am still waiting to hear from all of my other schools,” Evans said. “Crossing my fingers for the rest!”