Samuel Lefcourt, founder of Crest Education

Valedictorian at 12

Samuel started high school at 8 years old and graduated as co-valedictorian at just 12 years old.

Silicon Valley Fellowship in Technical Entrepreneurship at 15

In 2017,  at just 14 years old, Samuel got into a prestigous 25 person fellowship designed for graduate degree holders from the highest tiers of academia.  Thousands applied.  He took a semester off from college to attend this life-changing experience, led by UPenn graduates Abhi Ramesh and Darwish Gani, who are now world-renown serial entrepreneurs leading billion dollar enterprises.  He learned how to thrive in a rapidly advancing technological environment, hear from successful, young connecting with peers from across the world, and broadening his horizons.

Entrepreneur & Advisor to Space Industry

Samuel has been an entrepreneur in his own right, working on stealth products in the healthcare and space industries.

SMU Freshman at 13

With a passion for game development, Samuel entered Southern Methodist University majoring in Computer Science as the youngest matriculated student.

BS at 17, MS at 18

Samuel found his passion in artificial intelligence, working on numerous AI projects in the defense space.  During his first project he built a deep neural network model for the autonomous detection of nuclear weapons, compressing the parameters to fit onto an edge constrained device and fly on a drone.  His work spanned several universities, working on projects with professors from SMU, Boston University, Dartmouth, and MIT.

PhD Candidate in Ethical AI for Satellite Defense and Radiology Diagnostics at 23

At Johns Hopkins, as a member of the Institute of Assured Autonomy, Samuel built robust AI to act as intrusion detection systems, protecting national space assets from adversarial attacks.  As a member of the Radiology AI Lab, he has worked on radiomics - a combination of artificial intelligence and neuroimaging bioinformatics - to advance the field of computer aided diagnostics.  Lefcourt will defend his thesis in Spring 2026.