While studying biology as a freshman at Walnut Hills High School, I felt a deep connection to understanding the different processes an organism goes through to sustain life. My interests were ultimately piqued by the Anatomy & Physiology course taken the following semester. From the beginning of that course, learning how different structures and functions work together allowed me to gain an inspired appreciation for the complexity of the human body. By the second half of the first semester, I was even helping others understand certain concepts and processes. This deepened my desire to pursue a career in the medical field. For this class, everything was taught through diagrams of different structures and visualizing processes through notes. Because of my curiosity of medical sciences, I opted to take AP Biology starting the fall of my senior year. Although the school year isn’t over, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the body on a cellular level and it has gotten me to start thinking about what I want to do in the medical field. Given my exposure and experience with respiratory issues that decision was not difficult. Since I have known my mom, (in fact, for the past twenty-seven years), she has dealt with a specific subtype of severe asthma that causes fixed airflow obstruction. Right now, she is breathing at fifty percent lung capacity, and it is only going to get worse due to the disease’s irreversible nature. My whole life I have sat beside my mom watching her struggle to breathe. As a result, she has had to miss out on many family moments and memories I have made solely with my father and brother. This ultimately instilled in me a determination to find an answer to the obstacle my mother has had to encounter since before I was born. As of right now I will be attending the University of Cincinnati in the fall and will be apart of the Medical Sciences program they have to offer. Whether or not I end up doing research full time once I’m out of college, I am hoping to find a lab that is specific to mutations in eosinophil cells and how they affect the lungs and breathing that I can do research in while still in school in order to help and get experience in the lab. I plan on going into a career where I can get to know patients and help them on a physical and mental level.

Hi, I’m Taliyah Taylor and I’m from Cincinnati, Ohio. Growing up I’ve had to deal with a family that is not accepting of me as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. I’ve known that I am gay since I was in eighth grade but I’ve known my whole life that my parents aren’t accepting of specifically gay people due to their religion and comments they have made against gay people which has been a hard concept to deal with on a mental and emotional level throughout my high school years. Also for the past seven months my father has been out of a job which has been very hard on my family and I have gotten a job as a Pharmacy Technician to help support my own expenses for now and into the future. My passion for STEM started back while studying biology as a freshman at Walnut Hills High School, where I felt a deep connection to understanding the different processes an organism goes through to sustain life. My interests were ultimately piqued by the Anatomy & Physiology course taken the following semester. From the beginning of that course, learning how different structures and functions work together allowed me to gain an inspired appreciation for the complexity of the human body. By the second half of the first semester, I was even helping others understand certain concepts and processes. This deepened my desire to pursue a career in the medical field. For this class, everything was taught through diagrams of different structures and visualizing processes through notes. Because of my curiosity of medical sciences, I opted to take AP Biology starting the fall of my senior year. Although the school year isn’t over, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the body on a cellular level and it has gotten me to start thinking about what I want to do in the medical field. Given my exposure and experience with respiratory issues that decision was not difficult. Since I have known my mom, (in fact, for the past twenty-seven years), she has dealt with a specific subtype of severe asthma that causes fixed airflow obstruction. Right now, she is breathing at fifty percent lung capacity, and it is only going to get worse due to the disease’s irreversible nature. My whole life I have sat beside my mom watching her struggle to breathe. As a result, she has had to miss out on many family moments and memories I have made solely with my l father and brother. This ultimately instilled in me a determination to find an answer to the obstacle my mother has had to encounter since before I was born. This scholarship will help me be able to pay for college tuition which will go towards my degree in Medical Sciences and allow me to pursue a career in the medical field.

Ever since I began to understand the concept of algebra in sixth grade, math became one of my favorite subjects. But it wasn’t until I went into Pre-Calculus in junior year and AP Calculus AB the following year that I truly was excited and looked forward to math class and participating in class every single day. In these two classes I would spend extra time outside of school and homework to practice because of how much I enjoyed it. I remember back in freshman year of high school I made it my mission to memorize digits of pi and I got up to the first hundred. Anyways, Calculus was one of my favorite classes senior year. My favorite part of math is that every thing you do is like a puzzle and there can be multiple ways to approach each problem. Once I got a handle on Derivatives and Integrals I fell deeper in love with math because seeing how they really are opposites especially when it comes to trig shows how logical math is. It makes sense. It is satisfying to solve and it is meant to be solved. I also love math because I understand it and love helping my peers understand it as well.