Excellence is a matter of walking in truth; your own truth. When I see a woman walking in her truth, I admire her; hope to be like her. In my everyday life, I do this by embracing the world with a smile and courage in the ultimate hope that maybe someone else will smile and feel more courageous too. Let me take you through a typical day for me. I wake up in my car, it's cold and I have to pee so I sit for a second, holding my bladder and praying that I can make it to the nearest building. I grab my phone and keys and walk inside. I smile at the same custodian who cleans the floors of the Grace Watson building every morning. He smiles back. I use the restroom and set out to drive over to CBET where I'll work in the immunotherapy research lab until 5:30pm, likely unpaid because I love my principal investigator and I want her grant money to go towards more research and not paying me, so I work as a volunteer researcher instead. I then get ready to leave at 5:30 to go to my EMT class where I learn how to take care of people in medical emergencies before they get to the hospital. I ensure that I thank all my instructors and ask them if they've eaten today. After class, I might be able to eat, before I head over to an overnight shift at my school's volunteer ambulance agency where I'll stay until 2:00am talking to the other healthcare workers there because they just want to rant about how traumatizing and exhausting it can be to work in emergency medical care. I then text everyone I love that I love them, help make reservations and events for the rugby, french, and theater clubs I help run, do some school assignments, and then try to get to sleep. The radios stay on all night, sometimes they keep me up but I want to be ready if an emergency call comes in. I then try my hand at some sleep, knowing the next night I'll be at my part-time job until 12am, so I should enjoy sleeping in the warm ambulance base instead of my car for tonight. The next day I might get to run a simulation in my lab that will reveal we could potentially knock out most viral infectivity if we alter the methionine in their M protein, I might celebrate this finding with my lab group before I leave for work. Then I'll go to my part-time serving job where I'll work for $10/hour. I'll smile at the families, and draw the couples little comics of their date on the back of their receipts to make them feel special about their night. I'll then clean the whole restaurant when we close, letting my colleagues go home early; letting them know I'll finish up. I'll finish locking up the store by 11:59pm and run out to my car where I know I'll be safe. Once in my car, I'll post about the people suffering war on Instagram, I donate to a little girl named Layan in Palestine, then sleep again, finally, it's cold but it's alright because I'm glad I have a safe car to sleep in and no bombs going off. I'll smile because my family's safe and because the world fills me with joy sometimes, even when I'm exhausted. Because that's what it means to smile and have courage, because that's how you exemplify a spirit of excellence, that's how you give back.

Since I was in 2nd grade, I knew I wanted to be an engineer. As I got older, I saw people around me sick or experiencing medical ailments. My mom had cervical and liver cancer; she never got diagnosed. She died when I was 14. From there I wanted to make a difference in the lives of those suffering medical ailments all while pursuing an engineering degree in a male-dominated field. I had to, as someone who mourned the loss of a perfectly wonderful woman who was neglected by the healthcare system, I had to. So I'm pursuing biomedical engineering for my undergraduate degree at Rochester Institute of Technology. Many of my male relatives, and even people at my school, said biomedical engineering “doesn’t count” as an engineering discipline. This is probably because it’s medical-related; probably because it’s women-dominated; perhaps because it’s new. But to heck with them, because in biomedical engineering, I knew for sure I could create new diagnostic devices and technology for cancer, create new accessible medical devices, and even engineer new cancer therapies. And, to that end, I have. So far, I’ve worked in an immunology research lab where I've helped develop viral therapies to kill prostate cancer cells. I also work with imaging nano-particles for breast cancer that both tag these cells and can be cytotoxic to them, resulting in longer remissions after non-invasive mastectomies. I fought my way into this lab, because a women has to fight to prove she's worth the investment right? But no woman's struggles have ever ended there. I've had financial struggles, so bad that I had to live in my car this past fall semester. I’ve seen women ignored by the healthcare system; bludgeoned by policymakers who don’t care about their well-being. I fought for a place in the EMS system as a training driver and medic on an ambulance; watched suffering in hospitals. I’ve seen myself struggle to have any form of healthcare whatsoever as a low-income student. I live with chronic shoulder pain from a collarbone injury from years ago. I never had the money for palliative care. I've had to suffer in silence; smile and pretend I’m not in constant pain; take care of people while I’m in pain, like so many women. We need women in healthcare because we know the way women suffer; we can recognize it. We know that when women suffer, they're expected to be gracious about it; expected to smile and say thank you and be bubbly about it. When they grumble or complain, they're told they're being ungracious and overreactive. As a woman in healthcare, I want a woman to smile when she realizes she can afford her medication; when someone finally tells her what's happening in her body instead of dismissing it. In fact, I don't want women to have to smile at all. I don't want them to have to be so overly gracious when healthcare providers do the bare minimum. I want her to walk away in a huff because she's in pain, I want her to be allowed and expected to express that pain instead of masking it. I need to be in the room with her to tell her that, I need to write public policy that tells her that, I need to make devices and therapies that tell her that. I need to work in healthcare for her, for me, for my mom, because women need women in healthcare. I'm sorry if this isn't an overly eloquent essay. I didn't use AI to help me write it because AI isn't a woman, I am.

Regular, affordable, educational health check-ins. Not check-ins that the patient-scheduled, not check-ins that are self-forgetting and expensive. Check-ins that are state-mandated, state-controlled, state-funded. Check-ins that are generated automatically through text messaging; government-mandated text messaging. Check-ins that educate rather than just diagnose. My mom would still be here today if these existed. She would be here today if she had a mental health check-in regularly, if she had been screened for cancer regularly, if she had been diagnosed with depression disorder earlier, if she had been asked how she was feeling and what her environment looked like. Maybe then she could have been educated as to the danger of accepting unknown "anxiety drugs" (otherwise known as morphine) from people who are not educated in handling dosages. Patients are just expected to schedule their appointments themselves, schedule their follow-ups themselves, and show up to these appointments by their own means. Especially if they are mentally or physically disabled, low-income, young, or elderly, these groups may not have the physical, fiscal, or mental fortitude to set up these regular check-ins. And I refer to them as "check-ins" instead of "check-ups" because "check-ups" refer to something sterile, something abject, something cold; something that does not actually dig into the needs of the patient or even the lack of knowledge or ability the patient has to communicate their needs and concerns. This might look like having a text message system that reminds patients of check-in needs regularly and then gives them a questionnaire, accessible through various means (computer, phone, mail option) that gathers needed information from them and then schedules the visit (whether in-person or virtual) for them, then gives them various modes of being transported to the appointment and constant reminders about the appointment coming up. The questionnaire might dig into the patient's socioeconomic perspectives as they relate to healthcare. It might ask them how their partner is treating them, if they are feeling self-deprecative, if they are seeing any mold in their house. Their answers would be secured and protected unless the patient wants to share them or if their responses warrant intervention. This way, we aren't putting the oneness on a depressed person, for example, to check in about their suicidal thoughts by calling a hotline in their most dire moments, but, instead, we're actually asking these questions regularly and alerting their healthcare professional regularly. Our medical system is modeled too much so after a "hot-line" or "emergency-response" rhetoric. It takes care of patients retrospectively instead of proactively. The healthcare system needs a way of regularly checking in on people without it being a last-ditch effort to save a life when it's already too late. This affordable, educative, automated check-in system could be heavily helped by modern artificial intelligence or computer programming to hone in and keep track of certain conditions the patient exhibits and ask more pointed questions at that condition in addition to general questions to ensure new conditions aren't missed. A program like this, where citizens can't opt out and must complete these check-ins regularly or else medical intervention be sent to them, and no, not police intervention, medical intervention. Medical-related non-compliance should have caring emergency medical personnel sent to them, not people with guns. Imagine healthcare that actually seemed interested in taking care of people instead of nursing their nearly dead bodies back to life and then charging them their life savings to pay for it. What if we could catch, diagnose, and treat conditions early instead of fighting a losing battle every time? Simply, we need a better check-in system.

Stumbling across this scholarship, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief, visibility, of clarity. So often in my life does my identity as a queer youth feel like a taboo, an uncomfortable shift in posture, a subject that older generations in positions of power would love to overlook because it's easier to see me for all my other qualities. It's easy for my grandmother to point out a lesbian couple in disgust to me despite her knowing I'm one of them. It's easier for my dad to chuckle awkwardly when I tell his creepy friends that I'm not into boys when they ask unsolicited questions. It comes naturally for my family and workplace to graze over the fact that I'm queer and don't align with typical gender roles to feed their own concept of who it is acceptable to be. It's easier to erase queer youth because our existence is undesirable, it's not something these generations anticipate and therefore they respond with discomfort, with disapproval, with distaste. These reactions enfeeble me. They cause me to shrink and hide my personality among the flavors they can stomach, among the flavors that resonate with their limited palette. Thus, if I could see a change in this world, among so many, it would include eradicating this negative reaction to a person's visibility. It would mean existing as you are, as your regular, un-caricatured version of yourself without being given a second glance. You see, when I'm presenting a pitch to my internship director after having cut my hair short, I don't want him to deem me as overbearing and pushy. I don't want to have to shrink back into my femininity just to gain his approval. I want him to hear me out purely to hear me out, without a second thought to my presentation or affiliation with queerness. I don't want to have to be obsequious or have to suppress my flamboyance to align with his perception of an acceptable employee. I want to see a world where our colors, our backgrounds, our accents, our presentations are appreciated, but not sensationalized, not made out to be intimidating or disqualifying. A world where I don't have to leave out the fact that my rugby coach is married to another woman just to sustain my family's approval of my sisters and I playing on her team. I want the future of the world to stop getting hung up on and appalled by our identities and the way we inhabit our bodies, but to let every person exist in the form, expression, and presentation that brings them the most peace. For if we are capable of existing in peace and in relative control of our own self-concept, then we could concentrate our efforts into progressing to a place of sustainability and progress. In a world that doesn't try to put a ceiling on what you're allowed to accomplish as a member of x, y, or z, we wouldn't have to attend countless protests or spend hours of our remaining energy responding to ignorant people that wish to belittle us into submission to their world order. A change such as this is would set us free from the shadows we are encouraged to recede into between our moments of "normativity". This kind of change would allow us to confidently express our abilities as problem solvers, comforters, creatives, personalities, and hard workers which are currently devalued because of our identities and how we express our sexualities, cultures, disabilities, preferences, and lifestyles. As unfettered youth, we trudge on to see a change like this to its fruition.

Empathy. It's an integral guiding principle of my life that I often neglect to credit for my multiple aspirations. Whether it be the empathy I have with the families of terminal cancer patients being that my own mother was taken from this world by silent cancer. Something that has led me to want to work one day as a biomedical engineer who specializes in oncology and technological solutions to the early detection and treatment of metastatic and terminal cancers. Whether it be the empathy I have for farm animals from my experience interning on a sustainable farm and learning the inept capacity for personality and love these animals harbor. Something that has led me to become vegetarian and advocate for a more sustainable, humane environment and agricultural system. Whether it be the empathy I express for students who struggle with mental health issues as a result of my battles with self-worth and depression that I've been able to overcome. Something that causes me to always lend an open ear and destigmatize these mental health issues among my peers. Whether it be experiencing abuse, grief, the ills of perfectionism, sports injury galore, and ostracisation, these instances of hurt have, to some degree, allowed me to form integral connections with the world and people around me. Through these experiences, I've been able to insert meaning and fervor into empathizing with others and using this empathy as a driving force to minimize future instances of hurt in the lives of others. Not only has my life resulted in instances of pain that allowed me to express solidarity with others, but also in instances of the pure joy of the world. The joy of a sunny afternoon running through a sun-rimmed forest as the sun goes down, the joy of sitting on the rooves of junk-yard shipping containers with my sisters, laughing away into the night, the joy of watching an injury heal and muscle grow, the joy of being so immersed in art that hours run by without notice, the joy of an animal bathing in the sun, the joy of reunions with people missed, the joy of taking off your shoes and collapsing into an available pile of blankets after a long day at school and sports practice, the joy of an embrace, the joy of eureka, the joy of well-earned silence. I've experienced both hurt and joy well enough to know how integral each is to the human and earth-bound experiences. I hope to use these points of relatability, of relative understanding, of empathy, to bring healing and new life into the world. My dream on its largest scale is to reach the lives of the hurt, help heal them, and bring back joy. For from joy we learn that pain does not have to be permanent. I hope to do this by becoming a biomedical engineer and using my empathy alongside a few areas of aptitude to create solutions to heal. But not only this, to make those solutions affordable and tangible for people from all walks of life. Not only that, but I hope for that healing to mean something. For patients, and all people and generations for that matter, to experience the joy of living on this planet while it is clean and inhabitable. That is also why I advocate for the environment and hope to promote sustainable policies and practices wherever I end up. Joy and hurt are rallying points, I hope to use my experiences with them to relate to and help those who know a life full of rocks and valleys alongside sunny hills.

It was 11/13/2021, we were standing face to face, eager and ready, full of adrenaline. I followed all the steps our coach had just laid out for us. Run. Wrap. Drop. As I pulled her to the ground the victory of my tackle seeped away at the sound of a pop. I was sprawled on the field with an aching, burning sensation pulsing from my upper chest, near my neck. I look down to see none other than my left collar bone, jagged and propped inches from where it should have been. An ambulance was called and I was rushed to the hospital. In the months to come I would learn a world of understanding when it came to needing empathy and therefore the importance of showing it to others. It was four fractures to the left collar bone. Once at school, I had to use a rolling backpack and ask for help often. Peers and teachers often looked confused as to why I had the rolling pack or needed to be excused early. This was after I had recieved my surgery so it was not as obvious why I needed the extra accommodations. The experience gave me an extra sense of understanding for individuals with invisible disabilities. I learned that you truly don't ever know exactly what someone's going through, you don't understand the pain, the frustration, the significance of the small victories. Humans want to feel understood, want to have their needs taken into consideration. Even if I don't fully know what's going on, I try to express an extra sense of understanding and softness to others. I know how it feels to be broken, being shown kindness and empathy has been an essential step to feeling whole again. Wherever possible, I try to return the favor.

My twin and I run an environmental club at our high school where we highlight sustainability and circular economic values, aiming to propagate environmental literacy at our school. As a part of this initiative, we collaborated with our club members to collect plastic bottles and soft plastics to create what we call "Eco-bricks". These 'Eco-bricks" are plastic bottles stuffed with soft plastics to create compact building blocks. Our club was able to make over 500 of these eco-bricks and use them to build a sustainable sustenance vegetable garden for our school. Because of Covid-19 guidelines, we were not permitted to keep our sustenance garden on the school property, so my twin and I brought it home to our place of residence to maintain it. In it, we grow Midnight Black cherry tomatoes, banana peppers, green bell peppers, cilantro, and sweet basil, along with a few pollinators such as Zinnias, Coreopsis, and Cosmos flowers. We continue to give our environmental club updates about the garden and suggestions on how they can incorporate more sustainable options in their diet such as buying from local farmers, eating crops that are in season, and building their own sustenance gardens at their homes. The creation of our eco-brick garden allowed our environmental club to divert over 100 lbs of plastic from the municipal waste stream and we hope to build many more. Our school is working on building more eco-bricks and would love to educate and introduce them to our community in future projects. Even though our operation is small scale, a simple sustenance garden, it symbolizes the ability to be resourceful and reuse discarded plastics not as 'trash' but as useful building materials for a more sustainable world. There are a lot of ethical and ergonomic struggles when it comes to the world of agriculture, all farmers struggle in their separate fashions whether it be in producing quality produce given climate issues, warding off pests in an eco-friendly way, distributing their goods as to best minimize food waste, implementing effective and ethical use of transgenic organisms/crops, and many many more. We believe this small method of including our plastic waste when it comes to personal gardens and farms is one way we can contribute individually to a more circular economy and efficient use of abundant resources. My family also composts and as soon as I was released from school in 10th grade as a result of the Caronivirus pandemic, I built a compost bin out of old scrap wood we had accumulated over the years. I was deprived of my ability to build for my Destination Imagination club so I figured I would put my skills to use via a compost bin. We still use the bin to this day. Whenever we have excess food scraps, we collect them in an old kitty litter container and deposit them along with fibrous leaves and yard scraps to maintain the nitrogen and carbon balance of our compost. We use the fully decomposed compost to add essential nutrients to our mini eco-brick garden and into our mini-garden pots on our porch. Though at times the compost can be hard to maintain as a result of a large family and not always being able to convince family members to contribute, we hope by exposing our family and our school to the idea of composting and maintaining small sustenance as a regular part of life, they might be more apt to integrate sustainable agricultural/sustenance habits into their routines.