I held my father's trembling hands as his sad eyes failed to express what he wanted to say. We had tried every device available for patients like him—those unable to move, unable to use their hands to write, and unable to speak. But my father was not like any other patient. Diagnosed with Multiple System Atrophy, his paralysis came on slowly as his muscles tightened with rigidity. The tracheostomy to help him breathe prevented any sound from escaping his voice box, and his constant full-body tremors, characteristic of Parkinson's disease, never allowed him to fully rest. As eye trackers and similar technologies continued to fail him and he gradually lost hope, I held tightly to his hand, promising to create the solution to finally relieve his suffering myself. Thus, I entered the biomedical engineering major with the hope of developing technological solutions to the most challenging healthcare problems. I plunged initially into the research of implantable brain devices, such as Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs), as this technology would have been the only solution to help my father speak again. Just in my first year at Yale, I was able to get in contact and work with Dr. Zaveri, a neuroscientist pioneering the development of BCIs at Yale. I joined his NeuroProbe lab, where I helped fabricate and test a multimodal brain sensor to manage the symptoms of acute brain injury. I became the lead student investigator by my sophomore year and presented my research at the Yale Biomedical Engineering Conference. Thoroughly enjoying the research and development process of medical devices, I began tackling other projects to expand my engineering prowess during my junior year. Along with continuing my research in the NeuroProbe lab, I joined Dr. Gupta’s team, which was developing software to simplify and streamline physician medical charting. I worked on the patient-facing side, developing a mobile app to function as a medical scribe for patients. This summer, I will continue expanding my expertise as I am set to work with Dr. Wiznia on technology that will assist in the detection of peripheral artery disease. At the same time I delved deeper into the research and development side of medical technology, I was able to dabble in the management aspect, which piqued my interest. Specifically, I led my own venture from market research to funding and scaling in the span of six months. This venture was brought about after unknowingly conducting market research for over five years through the countless hours I spent tutoring students. I noticed a demand for accountability software that directly targets the cause of procrastination and low motivation. I developed a minimum viable product that showed success and gained the support of the Yale Ventures incubator program to develop it further. Since then, the app has launched on the App Store and is in the process of being integrated into public libraries as a study resource for students. From my experience, I saw firsthand the sheer struggle and perseverance needed to manage a venture. The countless failures and setbacks I endured served as hurdles to clear, a familiar concept for me as a 400-meter hurdles specialist on the Yale track and field team. While I enjoyed performing market research and contributing to the R&D side of technological development, I am even more passionate about seeing technology reach the consumer and make a real impact. Thus, as I pivot towards earning an MD/MBA joint degree, I hope to continue developing technological solutions to the most challenging healthcare problems and oversee the management side so patients like my father can live the real difference.

My mother always called me “Chef Kay,” Haitian Creole for “Head of the Household,” because of all the responsibilities I had put on myself to unburden the load from her. I was technically the middle child out of my five siblings (because my twin and I were second-born), but I carried myself as the eldest, taking out the garbage, cleaning the kitchen every night, and folding both my mother’s and my own laundry. When my siblings ignored the small needs of our home, I realized that change doesn’t happen by accident. I’ve come to understand from a very young age that I need to step up and lead by example if I want to shape the world around me. This philosophy soon manifested itself as I became the team leader in a national STEM competition in high school. This competition was the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Competition, which challenged high school students from public schools to develop a solution to a problem in their communities. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic that was at its height that year, my team aimed to design biodegradable masks that were as effective as commercial ones but eco-friendly. The 4 x 9-inch final product combined with innovative testing methods earned the $15,000 reward, which we gave back to the school community. This project even reached the interest of Matthew Staymates and Alexander Herman, both engineers at the National Institutes of Standards of Technology and the US Food and Drug Administration. I spent another year collaborating with these two research scientists on a case study that would eventually be presented to the Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering, and Biotransport Conference in Maryland. This amazing research experience provided me with the opportunity to showcase my leadership prowess while also staying true to my STEM background. I see it as practice for my future career as a biomedical scientist. I would like to contribute to the development of brain-computer interfaces to help patients like my father restore their communicative functions again that were lost after paralysis caused by their neurological disorders. I have been working closer and closer towards this goal since I was accepted as a student researcher at Yale’s NeuroProbe laboratory my first year in college (now I am a junior). We are developing a single-source brain monitoring solution in the form of an implantable brain chip to manage acute brain injury symptoms. I have fabricated and tested dozens of sensors and presented this research at the Yale Biomedical Engineering Conference. Furthermore, my achievements in the lab and as a student athlete at Yale have in fact been recognized by the Yale Engineering department. Moreover, my leadership capabilities extended to other spheres of my life, where I hope to lead by example. This includes on the track. I became the first in my high school to be a New York State Champion as well as an All-American and international finalist for Haiti. At Yale, I have broken three school records, earned 8 ivy league medals thus far, and been awarded All Academic by the NCAA. Additionally, I am passionate about leading community service, which is realized in my current role on the Elk National Foundation Scholar Advisory Board. Along with organizing national community service efforts, I also work with a small team to improve Elk scholar relations with the national foundation. What began as me as a child trying to lighten my mother’s load has grown into a lifelong mission to lead through service and science. From national recognition on CNN, Good Morning America, Young Innovators Under 20, and more to pursuing scientific research that advances healthcare, I hope to continue this work of leading by example, using innovation to give hope and healing to others. I’ve officially moved on from “Chef Kay” to “Chef de l’Avenir,” or the head of the future.

I used to save this book for nighttime reading, even though it had the opposite effect of winding me down. Instead of feeling sleepy, I became alert and sharp, carefully tracking every detail in case it would reappear later as the mystery unraveled. No Exit by Taylor Adams remains my favorite book out of the hundreds I have flipped through since high school and in college. I read it all the way back in 9th grade, where I’d already read dozens of mystery/thrillers such as Gone Girl, Dry, and The Maid. However, the brilliant writing of Adams was the first to truly fool both me and my twin sister. We had our own mini-book club—every morning on our 15-minute walk to our small public high school on Long Island, we’d discuss whatever novel we were reading. This book made me excited to jump out of bed and get ready to recount the story to my sister Victoria just to watch her eyebrows furrow with shock, mirroring the reaction I had the night before. I think she’d agree it’s one of her favorite books too, although she's never read a single word herself. The story follows Darby, a college student driving through a deadly snowstorm in the middle of the night to visit her sick mother. When her car breaks down, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote gas station with a few other stranded travelers. During the night, she stumbles across a van with a kidnapped child chained inside. Realizing that one of the people in the station is the kidnapper, she must figure out who it is—and most importantly, how to save the child and escape unharmed. The imagery was so vivid, my heart intensely pounded with almost every word. After finishing this book, I (and my sister) found a song to match its intense storyline. Now when I scroll through short-form videos from time to time and happen to fall on this song, I get the whole trailer of the book in my mind again. I’ll never forget it. Just as mystery thrillers tend to stay in my memory, so do dark and fascinating scientific facts. One that especially stuck with me came up during a lesson in my neuroscience class my first year at Yale. Specifically, we were learning about the organization of neural pathways in humans and in primates. We fell on talking about the efficient star-like neural network structure of psychopaths that essentially makes them extremely goal oriented. This characteristic about them explains why we see psychopaths committing a number of crimes—they are too focused on what they want to accomplish and process emotional and social cues as secondary information. Thus, my teacher gave us advice that I hope to never use in the future: if you want to escape from a psychopath, instead of pleading for your life, convince them that you getting away is ultimately part of their goal. Creepy? Absolutely. But I will also never forget it.

Hello! Alo! Bonjour! Hola! Growing up as the child of Haitian immigrants, fluency in four languages felt like a drawback as my young mind often mixed them up, leaving me unintelligible to those around me. Now, I embrace the advantages of being a polyglot. My split cultural identity as a Haitian American not only gives me my excellent culinary skills—black rice, beans, and chicken—but also lets me bond with friends over our favorite childhood Disney Channel shows. I wouldn’t change my upbringing for anything, especially the values of faith and relentless work ethic instilled by my mother. Church every Sunday was automatic, even when she was tired from her overnight shift at the hospital that Saturday. Apart from sharpening my French/creole being responsible for the lyric projections on the big screen, I strengthened my relationship with God and learned the action of giving back to my community. Now in college, I continue those values as a board member of the Elks National Foundation, participating in charity events across the country. My mother’s relentless work ethic was my greatest inspiration. Left alone to raise my four sisters and me when my father fell severely ill, she juggled two jobs to keep us afloat. Her grind became my motivation to excel in school and sports, hoping to lift us out of our struggles. By senior year, interviewers from ABC, CNN, and Good Morning America asked where my drive came from as a valedictorian, national champion, and international medalist in track and field. My simple answer? God and my mother. Why I wanted to go into the new flashy field of Neuro technology and artificial intelligence was because of my father. Watching his rare neurodegenerative disorder literally lock him inside his own body in a nursing home to this day sparked passion to find hope for all patients like him suffering helplessly like this. I am now a second-year biomedical engineering student at Yale University, balancing rigorous academics with my role as a D1 track and field athlete. In my spare time, I work as a lead student researcher in Yale’s Neurotechnology Lab. Juggling my extracurriculars I am passionate about while also maintaining my academic rigor at Yale is nothing new to me. The obstacle of attaining and holding jobs while in high school was grueling but granted me so many lessons I will keep with me forever. First, I was helping my mother with the Airbnb business she set up in her room to help pay the rent. Unconfident in her broken English, I handled the booking requests. Too tired to clean after her 13 hour shifts, I cleaned the room late at night. To further support our family, I walked two miles to McDonald’s at age 14, determined to get hired. When they ignored my calls, I kept showing up in person after track practice, requesting the hiring manager. After months of persistence, I was finally hired—but the real challenge had only begun. I had to juggle school, sports, extracurriculars, Airbnb responsibilities, and chaotic fast-food shifts. The long walks and late-night shifts paid off. I learned persistence, resilience, and time management. More importantly, I saved enough to buy SAT prep, boosting my score to the 97th percentile, and purchased new spikes to dominate at national championships. Ultimately, I am thankful for my background and hardships. They shaped the relentless, driven, and passionate person I am today.

I didn’t see the value of coming from a family of 5 sisters until I grew older. All that seemed to come out of it was arguments and unsatisfying compromises. However, I failed to realize that my large family taught me the ideal of always thinking about others and ways to improve our support system. I may have grumbled and sighed scrubbing all the dishes and mopping the floors, but I intrinsically felt gratified that I, along with my mother and sisters, would all enjoy the clean kitchen together. Thus, my daily actions in life naturally became considerate of others, which is an effective framework to live by, especially when striving for ambitious goals. I will be forever grateful that my background has ingrained the mindset that I must prosper with the purpose of supporting others. The STEM field is where I saw I could make the most impact on causes larger than myself. It began with my entry into the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow competition my sophomore year of high school. This nationwide contest challenged high school students to create solutions to a significant community problem. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, my team designed biodegradable masks that were as effective as commercial ones but eco-friendly. Our innovative product, along with our novel testing method, earned us the $15,000 reward. Staying true to my values, I chose to donate the prize back to the school. No amount of money could replace the joy of seeing new scientific equipment and laptops benefiting all students. Furthermore, my goal of being the valedictorian of the Class of 2023 was to honor the hard work of my single mother and the capabilities of the Black community. Besides news sources such as CNN, Good Morning America, and ABC celebrating my eventual achievement of my twin sister and I as valedictorian and salutatorian, comparable news sources such as Black Enterprise, Ebony, and The Grio recognized it as a triumph for the Black community as well. I aim to continue making significant impacts on others around me as I study biomedical engineering at Yale University. I want to develop devices for patients like my father who yearn for functional independence taken from them by neurological disorders. Furthermore, I hope to take my athletic commitments at Yale University to the next level and qualify for the 2028 Olympics in Track and Field to represent my parent’s home country, Haiti. Since they were immigrants, I have the opportunity to either represent the US or Haiti. I ultimately decided to represent Haiti internationally as I did recently at the Under 20 World Championships. The small country already lacks representation but needs positive media now more than ever as they face serious political issues. My success on the track will serve to uplift this community, continuing my life mission to use my overall success to support others. Concedingly, aiming to always achieve at the highest level has made it challenging for me to be a continual learner. I always set my mind to accomplishing one thing and will keep attempting the same thing regardless of how many times I fail. This persistence can be beneficial, but evidently limiting. A fitting example is when I am writing code for a program and I am getting the same error code. My instinct is to search for the minor bug causing the issue in my code instead of simply starting from scratch or trying a different approach. This flexibility would have saved me countless hours in my computational classes. Athletically, it has impacted my coachability. If I won a race with a running technique that isn’t the most efficient, it's almost impossible for a coach to convince me otherwise. This stubbornness, however, has likely prevented me from setting personal bests in my next races. Failing to be a continual learner has had its evident setbacks in my life, but I am working on simple ways to improve this aspect of myself. I have begun to exercise what I learned at a mindfulness class at Yale, which is to automatically label my negative reactions. For example, if someone suggests something new to me and I reject it, I immediately ask myself why I rejected it. This forces me to actually consider the advice given instead of disregarding it out of habit. I have also learned to step away from whatever isn’t working at the moment to have time to debrief on the issue and perhaps attempt it in a new way. Although not perfect yet, implementing these simple strategies will help me embrace new ideas and perspectives that will help me improve, not just for myself, but for those I aim to serve.

With just a nebulizer, styrofoam mannequin head, and an iPhone at home, you can evaluate the effectiveness of a mask against the COVID-19 virus. This innovative testing method was one I devised for my entry into the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow National Competition my sophomore year of high school. The COVID-19 pandemic was at its height that year, with glaring death toll numbers continuing to climb across all news stations. School was pushed online as the whole world went into lockdown. The most overlooked victim of this all, however, was the environment. The disposable masks piled up landfills, silently breaking down into toxic chemicals that pollute the soil and water.  By the time I reached sophomore year, I had already transitioned into a huge “STEM-y"—that is, pursuing everything and anything STEM available at my high school. Whether that was completing advanced placement science and math courses, enrolling in research programs at local universities, or organizing science fair activities as STEM Honor Society President, I loved the hands-on, problem-solving approach to conquering life’s challenges. Thus, when the opportunity to enter the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest rolled around, I jumped at the chance, eager to stop sitting on my hands and do something meaningful during the lockdown period. I decided to address the escalating issue of mask pollution, as the demand for face coverings continued to rise with the ongoing progression of the pandemic.  This project entailed engineering biodegradable masks that were just as effective in protecting against the virus, cost-efficient to replicate the mass reproducibility, but, as the name suggests, far more eco-friendly. I went through dozens of prototypes fabricated from thin sheets of bamboo, cotton, and hemp. It was one thing to meticulously weave together materials for a 4x9-inch face covering, but I had to test each prototype for its breathability and performance against droplets. I developed a testing apparatus that consisted of a mannequin head carved out to fit the tube of a nebulizer through its mouth. I replaced the nebulizer fluid with tonic water that allowed the droplets from the mask to be more visible on my iPhone camera against the contrasted background.  My project made it to the final rounds of the contest, garnering the $15,000 reward, which I gave back to the school community. It even reached the interest of engineers at the National Institutes of Standards of Technology and US Food and Drug Administration. I spent another year collaborating with these two research scientists on a case study, proving my testing methods were as accurate in filtration efficiency as the Aerodynamic Particle Sizer (APS) system used to test commercially available face coverings. These findings would be eventually presented at the Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering, and Biotransport Conference in Maryland.  Through this experience, technological innovation became my new passion. I am currently in my second year studying biomedical engineering at Yale University while also competing on their women’s track and field team. I hope to pursue an MD/PH.D. where I can contribute to developing medical breakthroughs, especially in neurotechnology. I am steadily working towards this goal through my research at Yale’s NeuroProbe lab, where since my first year, I've been contributing to the development of an implantable brain device designed to help manage symptoms of acute brain injuries. I can only imagine continuing to use technology to tackle the most pressing health issues in the future.

One morning, my quick little routine came to a halt. I loved plopping my favorite fruits and milk into the Nutribullet and pressing the cup for a delicious breakfast. But unexpectedly, the motor refused to start. It seemed destined for the trash unless my 12-year-old hands could fix it. After hours of probing and watching YouTube tutorials, I found the frayed fuse and revived my old kitchen friend. I did it. That hands-on problem-solving experience became something I loved, later helping me salvage broken computers and electronics I found in the trash. I sold them on OfferUp, earning extra cash, which was especially helpful coming from a single-parent home. Moreover, it drew me toward STEM, where I routinely applied critical thinking to solve challenges and push the boundaries of what’s possible—a principle I struggled to embody throughout high school due to self-doubt. During this time, I often imagined a ceiling to my potential. I was the middle child of five daughters, raised by my single mother when my father became severely ill. Just as it takes repeated trials to prove a scientific theory, I had to show myself again and again that I could achieve more than I believed, proving I could make a significant impact. This realization began with my entry into the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow competition in my sophomore year. My team aimed to address the COVID-19 crisis by designing biodegradable masks that were effective and eco-friendly. Our project earned a $15,000 prize, which we donated to the school. It also caught the interest of engineers at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology and the FDA, leading to a year-long collaboration and a presentation at the Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering, and Biotransport Conference in Maryland. Track and field also became a way to push my limits. Starting in my sophomore year, my dedication paid off as I broke school records, won back-to-back New York State Championships, earned All-American honors, and qualified for international competition finals. I am grateful to have been featured on CNN, ABC, the Sherri Shepherd Show, and 20 Under 20 Young Innovators Changing the World, where I had the opportunity to share my journey of pushing boundaries both athletically and academically, hopefully inspiring young girls in STEM as well. I am currently in my second year studying biomedical engineering at Yale University while competing on their Women’s Track and Field Team. I plan to pursue an MD/Ph.D. where I can contribute to medical breakthroughs, especially in neurotechnology. I want to be the beacon of hope to patients like my father whose bodies have succumbed to complete paralysis, helping them regain movement or even the ability to speak again. I’m working towards this goal through research at Yale’s NeuroProbe lab, where since my first year, I’ve been contributing to the development of an implantable brain device designed to manage symptoms of acute brain injuries. Being selected for this scholarship will allow me to dedicate more time to lab work and continue being the voice for women athletics in Yale Women’s Athletic Council. More importantly, it will grant me the opportunity to empower future patients and young girls, showing them that they, too, can do it.