Kate Bray Leads The Way To University Of Michigan

Kate Bray loves to stay busy. She is a three-sport athlete, Gold Award-earning Girl Scout, and an active member of her church and community.

When she found out she was the salutatorian of the Severna Park High School class of 2019, it was all the more exciting.

“It just showed that all my hard work paid off in the end,” Bray said. “I know that I’m going to have to continue to work hard in college, so starting these habits now was really important to me so that I can continue to do well in college.”

While at Severna Park, Bray played field hockey and lacrosse, and ran indoor track. She is a state champion in lacrosse, and earned spots on the first and second all-county teams in field hockey and lacrosse.

Off the field, Bray is involved with the Rise for Autism organization. She organized monthly teen nights and ran a bike camp last summer to teach people how to ride bikes.

As a Girl Scout, Bray earned her Gold Award by organizing a STEM night for elementary and middle school girls. She had 18 organizations in attendance, and more than 250 girls showed up for the event. At SPHS, Bray is part of Project Lead The Way, a four-year engineering program.

“What I’ve started to notice is that, over the years, the number of girls in the class decreases drastically because engineering is mainly a male-dominated field,” Bray said. “I wanted to encourage girls to continue studying that.”

Bray is leading by example. In the fall, she will attend the University of Michigan, where she plans to study biomedical engineering. She earned two scholarships from SPHS: one from the athletics boosters and one from Principal’s Prestigious Honor Roll.

“I would love to work side by side with doctors to improve medical equipment and their processes to make the world a safer place,” Bray said.

In college, Bray plans to play club lacrosse, and she looks forward to meeting new people and trying different things. However, she thanks Severna Park for the competitive environment that helped build her drive and for helping her get involved in the community.

“These different things have given me the opportunity to meet different people and be involved in different things,” Bray said. “I think that will really help me in college just to branch out.”