Brittney Exline is the youngest African-American female to be accepted into an Ivy League school, at 15. She went on to become the United States' youngest African-American engineer.^[1][2]

Life

Exline was born on Valentine's Day^[3] in Colorado Springs, Colorado to Chyrese and Christopher Exline. Brittney taught herself to read at age 2, and skipped three grades as a youth.^[2] She graduated from her high school's International Baccalaureate program. Exline also studied anthropology at Harvard University while in school. She went on to receive a full scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania in 2007 at 15, making her the youngest African-American to be accepted into an Ivy League school.^[1][2] While in college, she majored in engineering. In 2011, at the age of 19, she graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in computer science.^[1][4] After graduation, Exline became a software engineer for Chitika, an online advertising network.^[2][4]

Interests

Exline volunteered with various community-based organizations in Philadelphia.^[1] She worked with the Community School Student Partnerhsips in Philadelphia while still at university. She also trained 30 tutors from Penn and worked as a kindergarten summer school teacher for Freedom Schools in Philadelphia, showing her interest in education.^[3]

She speaks many languages: English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Russian, Arabic and German.^[3]