With an impressive performance at the National All-Girls Tournament, 14-year old Miranda Liu becomes the first Illinois female junior to achieve the US Chess Expert title in recent times. As of the official June 2016 ratings, she comes in at 2015. Congratulations to Miranda!
An observant reader of the ICA site wrote in to correct a previous erroneous posting that Miranda was the first ever. Yelena Gorlin became an Expert in 1999 as a high school sophomore at Niles North. Sadly, it appears Ms. Gorlin stopped playing rated chess as of the 2002 Pan American Collegiates in Miami when Yelena was presumably a freshman in college. She went 3.5/6 to raise her rating to 2169. The event also included Yury Shulman, Jennifer Shahade, Eugene Perelshtyn, Irina Krush, and Alexander Onishchuk. It was also Illinois-based NM Hugo Padilla's first USCF-rated event.
A "Google Search" for Ms. Gorlin brought up this stanza from the US Chess archives:
"Yelena Gorlin was born ... in Minsk, Belarus. Although her father taught her the game by the time she was five, she was ten before she played her first tournament. Her family moved to the U.S. in August of 1997 and Yelena has represented the U.S. in the multiple World Youth Chess Festivals. Yelena also enjoys the challenges of Mathematics and Track and Field."
Today she appears to be a post-PhD researcher in Germany working on fuel cell technology with expertise in Spectroscopy and Electrochemistry and an impressive array of technical publications. Who ever said that a strong chess background can't lead to other amazing accomplishments!
Complete table is listed below including 47 Illinois players.
| Rank | Name | Rating | |
| Age 7 and Under | |||
| 2 | Mardov, Dimitar (15205818) | 1682 | |
| 30 | Emrikian, Aren C (Age 6) | 1378 | |
| 53 | Rugg, Aaron Michael | 1220 | |
| 70 | Kong, Ryan (15737945) | 1123 | |
| Age 8 | |||
| 15 | Yong, David (15273720) | 1655 | |
| 25 | Zhao, Alex (15335115) | 1589 | |
| 36 | Wang, William (15270976) | 1473 | |
| 65 | Elgat, Adam (15552450) | 1322 | |
| 82 | Friedman, Andrew Charles (15582135) | 1255 | |
| Age 9 | |||
| 16 | Xu, Arthur Zihan (14968896) | 1862 | |
| 90 | Cahill, William (15096335) | 1449 | |
| Age 10 | |||
| 45 | Gan, Aaron X (14678952) | 1688 | |
| Age 11 | |||
| 10 | Turgut, Aydin (14284734) | 2108 | |
| 48 | Bareket, Adam (14949325) | 1832 | |
| 55 | Zheng, Peter (15075977) | 1815 | |
| 100 | Parthasarathy, Madhav (14766234) | 1688 | |
| Age 12 | |||
| 23 | Daniels, Jason Scott (14107163) | 2042 | |
| 26 | Wang, Ricky (14403974) | 2036 | |
| 48 | Acharya, Siddharth (15165476) | 1921 | |
| 57 | Carey, Aidan M (14949435) | 1873 | |
| Age 13 | |||
| 5 | Peng, David | 2335 | |
| 54 | Bareket, Tom | 1939 | |
| 57 | Li, Marissa | 1935 | |
| 58 | Mangalam, Shreya | 1932 | |
| 74 | Ganesan, Ishaar | 1893 | |
| 89 | Ho, Kevin | 1866 | |
| 99 | Zhang, Edward | 1826 | |
| Age 14 | |||
| 9 | Furfine, Jacob (13089315) | 2294 | |
| 25 | Do, Vincent (13666696) | 2137 | |
| 31 | Kalghatgi, Akhil (13797215) | 2112 | |
| 46 | Hao, Hanson (13858968) | 2048 | |
| 50 | Kalghatgi, Nikhil (13797221) | 2039 | |
| 57 | Liu, Miranda (14042343) | 2015 | |
| 90 | Rai, Tej (14712050) | 1897 | |
| Age 15 | |||
| 18 | Bian, Alex (13257335) | 2218 | |
| 33 | Bronfeyn, Daniel (13720325) | 2141 | |
| 35 | Stevens, Matthew James (13788934) | 2137 | |
| 64 | Narayanan, Rishi T (13949428) | 2043 | |
| 69 | Curcio, Jack Thomas (13451367) | 2030 | |
| Age 16 | |||
| 10 | Li, Zhaozhi (13646954) | 2330 | |
| 40 | Adve, Anshul (13296020) | 2163 | |
| 41 | Bartochowski, Nicholas J (13216472) | 2159 | |
| 87 | Fei, Andrew Yueyang (14064411) | 1952 | |
| 100 | Wei, James (13577813) | 1902 | |
| Age 17 | |||
| 29 | Hrach, Jonathan Matthew (14094872) | 2179 | |
| 35 | Lehmann, Spencer (13457744) | 2133 | |
| 57 | Holecek, Zachary (12933315) | 2057 | |
| 85 | Denby, Caleb Sean (14361200) | 1986 | |
| Age 18 | |||
| 34 | Guan, Bradley (12935418) | 2147 | |
| 78 | Spann, Nabil J (13979063) | 1969 | |
| 80 | Holzmueller, Nathan (13899472) | 1961 | |