Speaking Volumes
A recent DGS graduate starts her college career as a national speech champion and published research writer
Zoya Siddiqui takes the trophy in Impromptu speaking at Nationals. Photo courtesy of District 99
When Zoya Siddiqui transferred to Downers Grove South from Fenton High School her sophomore year, she was terrified she wouldn’t make friends. However, she joined multiple activities, hoping to connect with other South students.
Speech team was at the top of her list because she had participated in it at Fenton. After joining the DGS speech team, her friendship fears quickly proved unfounded. “My speech friends became some of my best friends in the world,” Siddiqui said.
These friendships inspired the final speech Siddiqui delivered during the National Speech & Debate Tournament this summer in Richmond, Virginia.
For the culminating Impromptu round, she received three quotes and had to select one around which to develop a speech.
For Siddiqui, the choice was a no-brainer.
She picked Booker T. Washington’s quote, “Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.” She then used the seven minutes allotted to plan and deliver her speech, which she said was “basically a love letter” to her speech team.
That tribute earned Siddiqui the National Championship title in the Impromptu category, a victory made sweeter as about 10 of her speech teammates were there supporting her.
When she heard her name announced as the Impromptu champion, she was elated but also surprised. Not only had she finished the state-level speech season in fourth place for both Impromptu and Informational speaking, but “no one from Illinois really ever expects to win Nationals because Illinois isn’t typically involved in the National Circuit,” she explained.
In the senior section at a DGS spirit assembly, Zoya Siddiqui embraces a friend. Photo courtesy of District 99
Siddiqui’s win was even more impressive because it was her first year competing in the Impromptu category.
Though she is proud of her championship conclusion to her speech career, Siddiqui considers earning the National title the “cherry on top,” not the whole sundae.
What meant most to her were how she grew and the relationships she built through Speech. “I hope my legacy is the community I left behind and the mentorships,” Siddiqui said.
She isn’t fully leaving Speech behind, though. Siddiqui said she plans to judge at high school speech tournaments and eventually coach speech at DGS, “giving back to the club that did so much” for her.
Zoya Siddiqui presents her research at the 2025 American Association of Physics Teachers Winter Meeting in St. Louis. Photo courtesy of District 99
Siddiqui’s successes extend beyond speech. An article she co-authored was recently published in a peer-
reviewed journal.
The road to publication started when she was a member of DGS’s Research Club, through which she collaborated with a physicist from Fermilab and other teen research scientists from various Chicagoland high schools to analyze how solar events affect charged particles called cosmic rays that collide with Earth’s atmosphere, explained DGS Research Club sponsor Marybeth Senser.
Senser referred to Siddiqui as a “rare, well-rounded scientist who excels at every part of the research process.” This excellence contributed to Siddiqui leading a workshop for a group of international particle physicists at Fermilab and presenting her research at the 2025 American Association of Physics Teachers Winter Meeting. In August, Siddiqui’s team’s research article was published in the Journal of Undergraduate Research for Physics and Astronomy.
“Her work would be impressive at a collegiate level,” Senser said. “For her to accomplish all this as a high school student is truly exceptional.”
Yet Siddiqui is just getting started.
She is a first-year student at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Guaranteed Professional Program Admissions program, ultimately seeking a PhD and possibly an MD degree. “I think I want to go into cancer and neurodegenerative disease research,” Siddiqui said.
She already works in multiple labs at UIC, including one researching Crohn’s disease. “It’s a lot of pure science, like mad scientist kind of stuff,” she said. “I love it!”
Equally smitten with and skilled in science and speech, Siddiqui doesn’t see the two as mutually exclusive. Instead, the self-described “advocate and activist” hopes to use them in tandem to “implement public policy in the health environment.”
