PRINCETON, N.J. — A Canadian student at Princeton University is making history as the first black valedictorian since the school's founding 274 years ago.
Montreal-raised Nicholas Johnson is set to be honoured at the Ivy League institution's virtual commencement on May 31.
A graduate of Selwyn House School in Westmount, Que., Johnson racked up academic accolades as a operations research and financial engineering student at Princeton.
As part of his senior thesis, Johnson developed algorithms to help address Canada's obesity problem.
Johnson took his learning beyond the Princeton, N.J., campus as an intern at the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms and a software engineer at Google's California headquarters.
He's set to pursue his PhD in operations research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology next fall.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2020.
The Canadian Press