Jonathan Valenzuela Mejia

Months before I was on my way to YYGS, there was a concern than my father and I had. I had managed to get financial aid to attend YYGS but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to cover the entire cost of the trip. My father was willing to take out loans and find any way for me to attend the program, because he saw it as a grand opportunity for me. I didn’t want him to take out loans and I began searching other ways of financing my trip to New Haven.

Stephanie Liu

I’m currently the curator of an annual school-wide art gallery called The Salon. This initiative started five years ago, and my co-head and I took up the role of curators in 2018. Although I’m very interested in science, visual art is still a big part of my life, and The Salon provides balance to my STEM based coursework. The Salon was started to display and share the talent present in our school community. We accept all forms and every piece of artwork that is submitted.

Jenna Kim

I turned to fashion to express my creativity and unique colors; I did not want to be written off as a mere “geeky” Asian girl in my predominantly Caucasian town. Fashion gave me confidence, and I yearned to know about other people’s distinct styles and stories. Thus, I created Jenzemi (link is external), a fashion blog that profiles people I encounter while walking the streets of NYC. Through Jenzemi, I have connected with people whom I would have never met before.

Julius Wambua

With a photo you can capture a moment, and have it forever. I think we take that idea for granted, with photography being so ubiquitous these days. But seriously, just take a second to appreciate that. If you took a photo in Ancient Greece, they’d call you a sorcerer. Or a god! I started a photography club in my school last year, and I am confident enough to say that it has topped thrice in ranking of clubs at my school.

Rajiv Sastry

Inspired by a YYGS seminar about information spread and social media, I continued research at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), working as an intern specializing in vaccine research. As we’ve seen on many fronts, social media can be a dangerous tool used to promote misinformation. This is especially true when it comes to vaccines. Social media has allowed false narratives about vaccines to gain traction, which has terrible consequences for the public health in our country. We’ve seen diseases like measles, long eradicated, now resurfacing.

Evance Henrico

Every time I sat by Lake Victoria, there was always that moment. That moment when I stop, and just glare at the watery world and the beautiful scenery around it. In early hours, it almost felt like I was in a tourist brochure, staring at the sheer beauty of the Bismarck rocks flanked by busy sailors and the deep blue sky emulated in the watery mirror, while in the afternoons, the lake lay silver in the bright light of the noon sun, not a perfect ovoid like a looking glass of old, but irregular like an ink-splat on aging concrete.

Vijjasena Sugiono

Currently, me and a friend I met at ATC 2018, Angelo from Hungary, worked on a project together. We aimed at developing a new type of photovoltaics technology, Agrivoltaics, which involves using the same land for both farming and photovoltaics system, with the plants cooling the PV array (increasing efficiency) and the array providing shade from too much sun. This idea can be implemented in Indonesia, where there is too much sunlight and the farmers live in poverty.

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