Senior year is here! (Sep 2024)
My birthday usually falls on the first or second day of the school year. This year was extra special, since it's my last one in high school! First day was a strange mix of anticipation, excitement and anxiety. Last weekend, I and a selected group from YPC performed for the Prime Minister of India at the Nassau Coliseum. We sang the Indian National Anthem to a rousing crowd of over 13,000 people. What a start to senior year!
My summer was a colorful blur, filled with travel, singing, summer research, and LOTS of essay writing. We won another 5 Gold medals at the World Choir Games, which was incredible. After coming back from New Zealand, I joined the New York Genome Center at Dr. Hemali Phatnani's lab, studying neurodegenerative diseases. It turned out that I was the only high school intern on her team - the other 2 were rising college sophomores. It was a bit intimidating at first, but I had two very supportive mentors. They introduced me to my research project and really helped me understand the connections behind the experimental work I was doing. Analyzing real human brain tissue for identifiers of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and then interpreting the images using cutting-edge software was exhilarating. I had to present 2 prior research papers, and tie those to my experiments in the lab. It was all made possible by my fantastic mentors! The internship ended just before the start of school, and I must say it has given me so much confidence and context in areas I'm keen to explore in college, such as neurocognition.
Earlier in the summer, I also learned that a research paper I had worked so hard on through my junior year studying emotions and world music had been accepted for publishing at the Journal of Emerging Investigators. This paper is very much in line with some of the topics I speak about during STEM-to-STEMM workshops, merging music and science. Interacting with kids through STEM-to-STEMM and observing their reactions during the workshops has been such a rewarding experience. This year, the workshops are expanding even further, with more community partnerships, and also a hospital partnership in NYC! In the midst of all this, I'm looking forward to spending time with friends in school and making new memories to last a lifetime!
My research paper
