Education, for me, has never been a straight path. It has been a way out, a way through, and ultimately, a way forward. I did not arrive at my goals through stability, but through disruption, loss, and the decision to keep going anyway. My high school education unfolded during chaos. As a sophomore enrolled in both IB and AP programs, I entered one of the most demanding academic tracks my school offered just as the COVID-19 lockdown began. The structure that had supported generations of students fell apart almost overnight. Our longtime IB director retired, and her replacement struggled to manage the program. In my junior year, despite pushing myself to write a mathematically ambitious Internal Assessment, my work was never submitted. I was told I would need to retake the course my senior year to earn my IB diploma. After three years of effort, I had to make a difficult decision: repeat the class or let go of the IB diploma entirely. I chose to move forward without it. Even so, I graduated ranked 84 out of 484 students, with a 3.89 GPA and a Seal of Biliteracy. Academically, I succeeded, but personally, I was struggling. My mental health had deteriorated under the weight of unstable relationships and a home environment that often felt invalidating. I asked for a gap year to regain stability, but I was given an ultimatum by my parents: either attend college or remain at home in a two-year DBT program. Choosing distance, I enrolled in a college in Ohio, hoping that the physical separation would create the space I needed to rebuild and heal. In many ways, it did. Being surrounded by students who cared deeply about learning reignited my own intellectual curiosity. For the first time in years, I felt grounded in my studies and confident in my ability to succeed through discipline and effort. But that sense of renewal was interrupted during my sophomore year when my closest friend back home committed suicide. The loss was devastating. In the midst of grief and isolation, I turned to my coursework as a way to stay anchored. Studying became more than an academic pursuit, it became a way of keeping my sanity. I immersed myself in classical piano through my school's conservatory, using music as another way to process what I could not yet articulate. I dedicated Chopin's Nocturne Op. 48 No. 1 to my friend. At the same time, I began to notice that the academic environment around me was often more competitive than collaborative. Rather than relying on peers, I learned to strengthen my independence, developing discipline, time management, and the ability to persist through difficulty alone. While these skills have been invaluable, they also clarified something important: meaningful scientific progress depends on collaboration. I plan to transfer to an environment that fosters cooperation, because I believe that the best ideas emerge not in isolation, but in dialogue. After I finished my sophomore year, I chose to take time away from school to focus on my mental health. I completed the two-year DBT program offered to me after I finished high school. This has marked a turning point in my approach to education. Over the past two years, I have dedicated myself to studying dialectics, both through DBT and through independent study of dialectical materialism in the natural and social sciences. This dual engagement transformed not only how I understand myself, but how I understand knowledge itself. Dialectics gave me a framework to make sense of complexity, contradiction, and change. My longstanding fascination with physics and chemistry, especially with motion, energy, and transformation, deepened as I began to see these fields not as collections of static rules, but as dynamic systems shaped by interaction and tension. Concepts that once felt abstract became coherent and alive. I began to understand that balance is never fixed, that forces are always in relation, and that change is not random but emerges but underlying contradictions reaching a tipping point. This insight was not just intellectual, it reshaped how I approach my own life. Where I once saw stagnation and inevitability, I now see the possibility for transformation. Dialectics taught me that conditions can be analyzed and changed, and that knowledge is not passive. To understand something is, in some sense, to intervene in and change it. I have extended this perspective beyond theory by participating in social investigation and class analysis with a small group of peers. Our work draws on multiple disciplines (statistics, sociology, psychology, and economics) to better understand the conditions affecting marginalized communities and to think concretely about change. This experience has reinforced a core belief: education is not simply about acquiring information, but about engaging with the world in a way that makes transformation possible. These experiences have shaped my academic and career goals with clarity and purpose. I intend to pursue research in physics and chemistry, with a particular interest in systems that involve energy transfer, materials, and transformation. I am drawn to questions that bridge theory and application, work that not only advances knowledge but has tangible impact. At the same time, I want my career to remain connected to people. Whether through teaching, public communication, or community engagement, I hope to make science more accessible and meaningful to those who may not see themselves reflected in it. Education has given me more than direction, it has given me a way to navigate uncertainty. It has taught me discipline, resilience, and how to think critically both about the natural world and my place within it. The challenges I have faced (academic setbacks, mental health struggles, loss, isolation, oppression) have not defined my path, but they have shaped how I move forward. They have taught me to persist, to adapt, add to remain committed to growth even when progress is not linear. I no longer see education as something I pass through. I see it as something I actively use to understand, to question, and to change the world around me.

The first time I saw my father in jail, I was nine weeks old, separated from him by glass and a phone line. I visited him about once a week during his six-month sentence, trying to understand how something so large and frightening had entered our lives. When he was released, I expected things to get easier. Instead, they became more opaque and complicated. Because of his felony, I was not allowed to see or speak to him at all while he was on probation. That absence, after already losing him once, was one of the most difficult parts of the experience. Incarceration reshaped my childhood in ways that extended far beyond those months. I was not allowed to have many friends over until I turned eighteen, and rumors about my family spread until I went to high school. Many of my peers kept their distance, and I entered middle school feeling socially unprepared and isolated. At the same time, I watched the long-term consequences of my father's conviction unfold. He lost the medical research career had spent years building and carried student debt without the stability to repay it. For a decade, he struggled to find work, eventually rebuilding his career in addiction medicine. He still faces barriers such as limited insurance coverage that restrict the patients he can help. From this experience, I learned how quickly a life can change, and how addiction, secrecy, and poor decisions can have lasting consequences not for one person, but for an entire family. I learned how people accept rumors instead of seeking understanding, and how stigma can isolate those who are already struggling. These lessons have shaped how I approach both my relationships and my future. Academically and professionally, my father's incarceration has had a lasting impact. Financially, it limits my ability to pursue certain educational paths, including attending private universities or funding graduate school. It influenced my view of responsibility and resilience. I am pursuing a career in STEM research, and I am mindful of the pressures that come with that path. My father has expressed doubts about whether I can handle those demands, shaped by his own experiences. I take those concerns seriously, not as discouragement, but as a reminder of the importance of balance, honesty, and self-awareness. Rather than deterring me, this experience has strengthened my commitment to my goals. I have developed discipline in my studies and a clear understanding that success requires sustained effort and accountability. I am intentional about avoiding behaviors that could compromise my future, knowing I may be more vulnerable to them. At the same time, I carry forward a broader perspective: that people are not defined by their worst moments, and that systems of punishment often extend far beyond the sentence itself. Incarceration did not merely shape my past, it clarified the kind of future I want to build; one grounded in persistence, integrity, and a commitment to using my education to contribute meaningfully to the world and myself.

I identify strongly with punk/emo music and culture. My presentation is now a central part of how I move through the world. As a transgender man, I experience gender euphoria through emo aesthetics. For a long time, my ability to express myself has felt limited by dysphoria. I feared that STEM spaces would not accept me. After intensive therapy, I am finally beginning to express myself more fully and confidently, especially through masculine alternative fashion. This shift has fundamentally changed how I show up in academic and professional spaces. My path in STEM has been nonlinear. I am a transfer student who took two years of medical leave to address my mental health. Returning to school required persistence and a willingness to rebuild my confidence. I have often felt out of place in the classroom, as there were times where I was the only AFAB person in the room. Being surrounded primarily by cisgender men made collaboration feel intimidating. My "otherness" of being an emo trans person made me feel small and peculiar. I found strength in connected with the few students who shared parts of my identity. Notably the only transgender man I met in my STEM courses was also emo, and we shared a lot of music in common. Working together on physics was both academically helpful and affirming. It reminded me that I was not alone and that I was capable. Because there are so few openly alternative trans students in STEM, I often studied independently. While that isolation was difficult, it also pushed me to become self-reliant and disciplined. At the same time, I began to reframe my identity not as a barrier, but as something I could reclaim with confidence. Expressing myself through alternative aesthetics became a way to take ownership of the traits that once made me feel excluded. I currently work as an informal science educator, providing free, hands-on demonstrations for people of all ages. Living in a more conservative and religious region, I know my appearance and identity unnerves some. But that visibility matters! While some may not know how to read me at first, I regularly encounter people who are excited to see someone who looks like them engaging with science. That response gives my work a deeper sense of purpose. Representation, especially in early science education, can shape whether someone believes they belong in these fields. My ability to clearly explain concepts and demonstrate technical competence directly challenges harmful assumptions about alternative and queer people as unintelligent, unserious, or lacking discipline. Looking forward, I plan to pursue research in aerospace engineering, specifically focusing on environmentally sustainable fuel alternatives for space exploration. I am also interested in spectroscopy, optics, and electromagnetic research related to semiconductors in laser systems. Beyond technical contributions, I want to challenge the cultural norms of STEM by rejecting narrow definitions of professionalism that prioritize conformity over authenticity. I am not interested in fitting into an outdated mold; I want to help reshape it (and if possible, abolish it). I see my future not only as a researcher, but also as a bride between scientific communities and the public. I am committed to communicating complex ideas in ways that are clear, engaging, and accessible, without unnecessary jargon. STEM should not be reserved for those who already feel like they belong - it should be open to everyone. My alternative identity has shaped my journey by teaching me resilience, self-definition, and the importance of visibility. I intend to carry those lessons forward, contributing not only to scientific innovation, but to a more inclusive and human-centered future for STEM.