Emilie Garrabrant, a graduating senior at St. Mary’s Ryken High School in Leonardtown, Maryland, has spent her high school years focused on academic achievement, cultural understanding and community service. The 17-year-old is the daughter of Jeslyn and Robert Garrabrant.
“My mother is Singaporean Chinese and my father is American, so I’ve had the pleasure of living at the crossroads of two distinct worlds,” Garrabrant said. She credits her multicultural upbringing and her parents’ encouragement with helping her develop a global perspective. Each year, they gave her $50 to spend at a used book fair, where she immersed herself in literature from around the world.
“I adventured aboard a spaceship with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, became enraptured in the political scandals of the last Russian monarchy and witnessed the downfall of Nigerian tribes to colonization,” she said. “I realized history and experience shape people’s needs differently.”
That awareness informs Garrabrant’s current work.
“I founded Leonardtown’s first Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Site, which I started with the goal of providing free tax assistance to the community,” Garrabrant said. “It can be incredibly expensive to get your taxes done, and the ultimate purpose of our site was to eliminate that barrier to saving up funds. How can people build savings, save up for an emergency fund, or achieve financial freedom if they’re living paycheck to paycheck? With tax assistance sites, you can save up that extra bit of money to support your family.”
Garrabrant serves as captain of the Mock Trial team and president of the Asian American Alliance at St. Mary’s Ryken High School. She also served as a state chapter director at Encode, an organization focused on artificial intelligence policy. In addition, she was co-chair of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Student Visionaries of the Year Junior Leadership Team, which helped raise more than $1.4 million for blood cancer research. In 2022, she authored and published a book titled The Stars We Never Saw, a work of historical fiction available through major booksellers.
She studied Mandarin last summer through the National Security Language Initiative for Youth in Taipei, Taiwan. She holds a Seal of Biliteracy in Spanish and served as a Senate page during the 2024–25 session of the Maryland General Assembly. Her awards include the Congressional Award Bronze Medal, the Princeton Prize in Race Relations Certificate and the Coolidge Senator Scholarship.
Garrabrant identified her senior theology class with teacher John Olon as a turning point. “This class has changed everything for me,” she said. “I think differently about human desire, why I do what I do, what drives me, and where I’m heading.”
She also cited her AP Economics and AP Research classes with Deacon Kenneth Scheiber as especially meaningful. Her yearlong research project examined the relationship between cultural values and perceived socioeconomic mobility in Singaporean Chinese communities.
“I explored the idea of human dignity, which was informed by my Catholic education as well,” she said.
She first became connected to St. Mary’s Ryken High School, which is sponsored by the Xaverian Brothers, while preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation. A conversation with her advisor prompted her to reconsider her plans to attend a public high school.
“He asked me, ‘Why the heck would you do that?’” she said. “That one question changed the trajectory of my life.”
After graduation, Garrabrant plans to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Morehead-Cain Scholar. The full-ride scholarship includes tuition, housing, summer enrichment experiences, and access to a global alumni network.
In recognition of her academic and personal leadership, Garrabrant was selected as the Class of 2025 Xaverian Orator and will deliver remarks during St. Mary’s Ryken’s Baccalaureate Mass.
“I plan to study economics, global studies and philosophy,” she said. “My teachers at SMR always taught me that education is truly the process of becoming more human. I can’t wait to continue exploring new perspectives and ways of thinking.”
She hopes to work in the field of international development. “I’d like to empower human dignity and uplift the most vulnerable,” she said.
To younger students at St. Mary’s Ryken, Garrabrant offers this advice: “Always reach out and ask. We live in a world where it’s too easy not to ask.”
Looking ahead, she said she is most excited about the unknown. “Sometimes, life becomes the most beautiful it can be when you end up without everything you thought you wanted.”
