The community of my home town, Bend Oregon is a place where people come to enjoy the outdoors and to get away from city life. The immense opportunity to explore the natural world has led to a passion for environmental advocacy. Leading the Bend High Environmental Club has allowed me to improve my leadership and communication skills. It is a large club with around 30 members, which can make it hard to organize projects. My passion for environmentalism has helped me stay motivated and keep working to improve the club. I have improved my skills in working with other leaders and coming up with creative ways to keep people interested in activities. I have learned public speaking skills through my work with the Student Voice Council, and practiced how to articulate my thoughts in a concise manner. The city of Bend is also a place where entrepreneurs innovate and create nationally recognized businesses. My whole life I have been surrounded by problem solvers and creative thinkers. My dad is a mechanical engineer who creates solutions for client’s issues relating to fire protection and coding. My family lives outside of town on a small farm, which physically separates me from much of Bend. Despite this, I still feel connected to the rest of the Bend community through my adventurous spirit. I push myself to become involved in my community through volunteering at local non-profits, because I believe in helping people. Working with the Bend Family Kitchen has allowed me to be more empathetic to those of different backgrounds. The people I have met who rely on this community resource are incredibly thoughtful and kind individuals, who happen to have found themselves in unfortunate situations which are often out of their control. People deserve equal opportunities, no matter their background or how they present themselves. Being on the edge of the Bend community has allowed me to see the wealth disparity in my city and helped me realize that the carefree escapism that many people who live here have may be detrimental to the wellbeing of our community as a whole. This lack of exposure to diverse perspectives makes it difficult for many locals to empathize with individuals from different backgrounds and cultures. Interact Club’s mission of international cooperation has given me the opportunity to learn how to take initiative and learn from those around me. Looking back, my life experiences have led me to studying Materials Engineering, but this realization came when I was working on a Design Justice Class project. When researching alternatives to the plastic and waxed paper lunch boats nutrition services uses, I found very few alternative materials. All I could find was organic-fiber based containers, and I realized that there aren’t any alternatives to plastic that have comparable properties. The risk of leaving the West Coast and studying in Michigan is outweighed by the incredible opportunity to expand my skill sets and knowledge in Materials Engineering, as well as to help grow as an individual. I am specifically interested in the emerging field of biopolymers. Biopolymers can be used in place of traditional plastics and are most often derived from renewable sources. There is great potential in this field and immeasurable inspiration can be taken from the natural world. I am hopeful about the emerging field of biopolymers and alternatives to plastic, and I hope one day to contribute to research on these emerging materials.

My favorite times in school have been doing lab work for my chemistry classes, such as creating a voltaic cell. Since childhood, I have always loved finding solutions to problems. I came across materials sciences last year and immediately felt that familiar sense of curiosity. I learned about the three types of allotropes in my Junior year of high school, and they sparked my interest in the atomic structures of materials and how this affects their unique properties. My career goal is to become a materials scientist researching non-corrosive materials that have a much shorter lifespan than traditional plastics, an example being biopolymers. With these advancements we can more effectively tackle the issues we are facing as a global community due to plastic pollution. I often think about how wasteful our society is. Why have we created a world in which nearly everything is disposable? I did my Extended Essay for the IB diploma on recycling landfill gas, and my conclusion was that there was no feasible solution to deal with the levels of waste we are producing. Research into new materials to replace those we are currently using will help to mitigate the issue of overreliance on landfills. Innovations such as water-soluble packing peanuts give me optimism, and I am optimistic that progress like this will continue. Dealing with school and district policies in my time as a representative on the district Student Voice Council and Green Leadership Coalition, I have discovered that you have to find the root of an issue before you can address the issue systematically. With Biopolymers being derived from renewable sources, there is great potential in this field and immeasurable inspiration can be taken from the natural world. The variety of polymers is fascinating to me because of their unique properties. Traditional plastic polymers are surprisingly strong, most are recyclable, and they are very resistant to breaking down, meaning some of them may be around longer than humans. This final point is increasingly becoming a major issue. There are so many plastics and different polymers we have created that will break down exceptionally slowly. We have no plan in place to manage this problem. Creating a biopolymer that can withstand the same conditions that we expect of our plastics would allow us to transition away from relying on traditional materials. Waste is accumulating at a rapidly growing rate, and our environment is suffering the consequences. There is currently no feasible way for society to stop the use of plastics equitably, therefore we need an alternative solution to the problem. Replacing existing polymers with biopolymers could help to mitigate this issue. The most effective strategy for decreasing plastic pollution is limiting the production of synthetic polymers at the start. I am passionate about helping people, and I hope to do this by using my skills for the betterment of our shared environment. Working in a STEM field will allow me to succeed with this goal. People often forget about who the work in the STEM field is all done for. Whether it is a client or someone we'll never meet, it is the responsibility of engineers and scientists to work for the betterment of the world. Perfecting whatever we do is our contribution to society. Doctors take care of us, teachers raise the next generation, contractors grow our cities, and engineers work to ensure they are equipped with the proper tools to find success. My experiences have given me the skills to succeed in my future career as an Engineer, where I can create meaningful change for the world and improve people’s lives.

My favorite times in school have been doing lab work for my chemistry classes, such as creating a voltaic cell. Since childhood, I have always loved finding solutions to problems. I came across materials sciences last year, and I immediately felt that familiar sense of curiosity. I learned about the three types of allotropes in my Junior year of high school, and they sparked my interest in the atomic structures of materials and how this affects their unique properties. My career goal is to become a materials scientist and research non-corrosive materials that have a much shorter lifespan than traditional plastics, an example of this being biopolymers. With these advancements we can more effectively tackle the issues we are facing as a global community due to plastic pollution. I often think about how wasteful our society is. Why have we created a world in which nearly everything is disposable? I did my Extended Essay for the IB diploma on recycling landfill gas, and I concluded that there was no feasible solution to deal with the levels of waste we are producing. Research into new materials to replace those we are currently using will help to mitigate the issue of overreliance on landfills. Innovations such as water-soluble packing peanuts give me optimism, and I am hopeful that progress like this will continue. Dealing with school and district policies in my time as a representative on the district Student Voice Council and Green Leadership Coalition, I have discovered that you have to find the root of an issue before you can address the issue systematically. With Biopolymers being derived from renewable sources, there is great potential in this field and immeasurable inspiration can be taken from the natural world. The variety of polymers is fascinating to me because of their unique properties. Traditional plastic polymers are surprisingly strong, most are recyclable, and they are very resistant to breaking down, meaning some of them may be around longer than humans. This final point is increasingly becoming a major issue. There are so many plastics and different polymers we have created that will break down exceptionally slowly. We have no plan in place to manage this problem. Taking inspiration from nature, creating a biopolymer that can withstand the same conditions that we expect of our plastics would allow us to transition away from relying on traditional materials. Waste is accumulating at a rapidly growing rate, and our environment is suffering the consequences. There is currently no realistic way for society to stop the use of plastics in an equitable way, which is why we need another solution to the problem. Replacing existing polymers with biopolymers could help to mitigate this issue. The most effective strategy for decreasing plastic pollution is limiting the production of synthetic polymers at the start. I am passionate about helping people, and I hope to do this by using my skills for the betterment of our shared environment. Working in a STEM field will allow me to succeed with this goal. People often forget about who the work in the STEM field is all done for. Whether it is a client or someone we'll never meet, it is the responsibility of engineers and scientists to work for the betterment of the world. Perfecting whatever we do is our contribution to society. Doctors take care of us, teachers raise the next generation, contractors grow our cities, and engineers work to ensure they are equipped with the proper tools to find success.

My favorite times in school have been doing lab work for my chemistry classes, such as creating a voltaic cell. From childhood I have always loved finding solutions to problems. I came across materials sciences last year, and I immediately felt that familiar sense of curiosity. I was taught about the three types of allotropes in my Junior year of high school, and they sparked my interest in the atomic structures of materials and how this affects their unique properties. My career goal is to become a materials scientist, and research non-corrosive materials that have a much shorter lifespan than traditional plastics, such as biopolymers. With these advancements we can more effectively tackle the issues we are facing as a global community due to plastic pollution. I often think about how wasteful our society is. Why have we created a world in which nearly everything is disposable? I have been researching waste systems for my IB Diploma Extended Essay recently, and I am concerned about the emerging problem of there not being enough space to put all of the trash we are producing. Research into new materials to replace those we are currently using will help to mitigate the issue of overreliance on landfills. Innovations such as water-soluble packing peanuts give me optimism, and I am hopeful that progress like this will continue. Dealing with school and district policies through my work with the Student Voice Council and the Green Leadership Coalition, I have discovered that you have to target the root cause of a problem before you can tackle the issue systematically. Biopolymers are most often derived from renewable sources. There is great potential in this field and immeasurable inspiration can be taken from the natural world. The variety of polymers is fascinating to me because of their unique properties. Traditional plastic polymers are very strong, most are recyclable, and they are very resistant to breaking down, meaning some of them may be around longer than humans. This final point is increasingly becoming a major issue. There are so many plastics and different polymers we have created that will break down exceptionally slowly. We have no plan in place to manage this problem. Replacing existing polymers with biopolymers could help to mitigate this issue. The most effective strategy for decreasing plastic pollution is limiting the production of synthetic polymers at the start. Taking inspiration from nature, creating a biopolymer that can withstand the same conditions that we expect of our plastics would allow us to transition away from relying on traditional polymers. Replacing existing polymers with biopolymers could mitigate this issue. There is no feasible way for society to stop the use of plastics in an equitable way, which is why we need a variety of solutions to solve the problem. I am passionate about helping people, and I hope my skills can someday be useful to the world. Working in a STEM field will allow me to succeed with this goal. People often forget about who the work in the science field is all for. Whether it is a client or someone we’ll never meet, it is the responsibility of engineers and scientists to work for the betterment of the world. Perfecting whatever we do is our contribution to society. Doctors take care of us, teachers raise the next generation, contractors grow our cities, and engineers work to ensure they are equipped with the proper tools to find success.