Halle hopes to impact future generations by creating an accessible online learning platform that uses volunteers to assist and tutor students. The application will provide live tutoring and help students tackle problems in their preferred learning style: auditory, visual or tactile.

Planned Major: Applied mathematics

Eliana discovered the many different aspects of health care and uncovered a newfound passion for healthcare equity after serving as a Kaiser Permanente Youth Work Prep and Summer Program candidate. As an industrial engineer, Eliana hopes to use health informatics and technology like computerized records, trusted advising systems, monitoring devices and warning devices to make healthcare more efficient in protecting entire populations in foreign countries.

Planned Major: Industrial engineering

Neil believes that the key to the future is interconnecting disciplines such as psychology, neurology and computation. He hopes to pursue a degree in computer science to launch a virtual learning platform and a network of college students to lead workshops in programming and computation.

Planned Major: Computer science

As a student-athlete in the STEM field, Bradley hopes to bring awareness that academics can complement athletics instead of seeing the two pursuits as mutually exclusive. Bradley hopes to become a role model for the youth in his community and further impact students by creating a mentorship program in underserved communities to further their academic and career goals in STEM.

Planned Major: Biochemistry

Xavier believes there’s an issue with the lack of universal access to technology, resulting in the exclusion of large groups from the STEM field. He hopes to expand access and the opportunity to explore STEM and STEM education for young students.

Planned Major: Computer science

Chiara hopes to break down the gender barriers in STEM fields and prove that gender doesn’t make a difference in abilities. She hopes to give other girls the confidence to pursue a career in STEM. Chiara spent the past summer as an intern for Boeing, developing a web browser that can simplify thousands of data entries and show trends in safety information.

Planned Major: Data Science

Valerie is a member of Upland High School’s Garden Club, which supplies the campus with recycling and compost bins to allow students to be a part of the change in reducing waste. She plans to pursue a degree in environmental science to study the negative impacts on the environment and help restore its beauty.

Planned Major: Environmental science

Rodlyn plans to study mathematics and use her skills to develop new technology, such as devices that can read accurate weather pattern predictions during the uncertain future of climate change. She hopes her work can also create a cleaner environment by eliminating fossil fuels and greenhouse gases.

Planned Major: Mathematics

Rhea plans to dedicate herself to cybersecurity safety to protect her community and spread awareness of this danger. She led a team in creating IOTAnet, a centralized security management platform, which placed in the top five finalists of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs’ Apps for Digital Peace Competition. Rhea is also co-founder of her school’s first Hackathon Learnathon, where she hosted the Basics of Cryptography workshop to highlight the importance of password encryption.

Planned Major: Computer science

While Dennis plans to major in mechanical engineering, he hopes to expand his knowledge to other fields such as environmental sciences, behavioral studies and more to understand multiple perspectives. Through his passion for cars and technology, he plans to develop alternative fuel vehicles through cleaner batteries, solar technology, hydrogen fuel cells or maybe even food waste to end transportation as the primary source of greenhouse gases.

Planned Major: Mechanical engineering

Eric has a passion for using machine learning to help solve real-life problems and predict risks spanning from medical procedures to architectural design. Eric previously worked with Jun Allard of UC Irvine on creating software that biologists could use to accurately simulate T-cells using genetic algorithms to calculate the risk of cytokine storms forming with foreign substances. This new software could help reduce the risk before it even happens. Eric hopes to contribute more to machine learning development in the future.

Planned Major: Mechanical engineering

Eric has the vision to build an intricate digital platform, spreading new algorithms and solutions to dismantle socioeconomic barriers. He plans to pursue a degree in computer science to make that vision a reality. Eric has already developed a mobile app to solve his school’s conflicting schedules. He also helped create an app to break financial barriers for nonprofit organizations, tackling racial injustice and promoting equal education opportunities. Eric’s team collectively raised more than $100,000 for various programs through the new app.

Planned Major: Mechanical engineering

Jennifer plans to study computer science and pursue a career in assistive technology. Jennifer quickly realized the fundamental issue with dementia patients: communication. Her grandfather has been diagnosed with dementia, and she has seen the effects on his daily life by trying to convey or remember what he wants to say correctly. Jennifer developed an idea for a language assistant that learns from a patient’s past speech patterns and uses machine learning to help predict and communicate for the patient, interpreting emotional states and generating conversational speech.

Planned Major: Computer science and art

Joseph is involved in the MIT Beaver Works Program, which sparked his interest in assistive technology, such as hearing aids, audio players and prosthetics. His grandfather became blind at 32, making Joseph curious about how to assist him through technology. Joseph hopes to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering to help further develop and advance neurotechnology and microchips that can potentially feed images directly to the visual cortex.

Planned Major: Computer science

Fernando participated in his school’s engineering academy and robotics team over the past four years. During that time, he learned about automation, vision tracking, camera recognition and stereoscopic vision. He believes rapid advancement in robotics technology can help people in his community, such as construction workers and nurses, who have physically demanding jobs.

Planned Major: Computer science

Jonathan hopes to become a pediatrician to continue to serve underrepresented and underserved communities. When volunteering at St. Jude Hospital’s post-anesthesia care unit, he interacted with native Spanish-speaking patients who felt very isolated due to the COVID-19 safety restrictions of no visitors. Jonathan became a critical asset and a key communicator for the hospital’s unit.

Planned Major: Biology

Growing up in Desert Hot Springs, Daisy learned about the stigma of violence, high crime rates, gang activity and lack of supporting parents or guardians surrounding the local schools. This stigma has discouraged many students from pursuing higher education and professional careers. To break those barriers, Daisy plans to pursue a career in a competitive STEM field to be a role model and encourage her classmates to pursue higher education.

Planned Major: Chemistry

Chiagozie intends to pursue a degree in engineering to create new technology with little environmental harm. He hopes to focus on mechatronics, an interdisciplinary engineering branch that provides a diverse skill set that can be applied to refining or developing new batteries.

Planned Major: Mechanical engineering

Monica studied computer science all four years in high school and has plans to continue in college. Monica credits her goal of pursuing a degree in computer science to her two mentors: her mother, a former chemistry professor, who has supported and inspired women in science, and her cousin, currently completing his medical residency, who has mentored and advised Monica with programming skills.

Planned Major: Data science

As Kayla looked at the history of clinical research, she realized that minorities have often been excluded, creating a disparity, especially in the effectiveness of drugs for certain minorities. Kayla was recently offered admission to Columbia University to study chemistry and wants to make a difference in science by addressing these disparities and creating medication that is inclusive and reflective of the current population.

Planned Major: Chemistry

Jesus hopes to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering focusing on aerospace. He also intends to encourage fellow students in his local community to study STEM. Jesus previously participated in a STEM event at a local elementary school where he led students in a rocket-building exercise and explained fundamental physics and flight paths due to the way their rockets were crafted and built. Jesus hopes to continue inspiring and mentoring future generations with his knowledge and experience in STEM.

Planned Major: Mechanical engineering

Kevin’s godmother was diagnosed with cancer and received chemotherapy multiple times. They were very close, and unfortunately, she passed away during her fight with the disease. Through his godmother’s experience, Kevin plans to study chemistry to innovate chemotherapy, researching the different types of treatments to find an effective and affordable replacement available for all communities.

Planned Major: Pharmacology and drug development

Fallon had always loved the local beach in her Orange County community and was devastated when a recent oil spill disrupted the ecology of the pristine coastline. She aspires to create solutions to address ocean pollution through her engineering education. She intends to develop innovative technologies that will help prevent and clean up oil spills. Fallon also plans on developing other technologies that will bring greater sustainability to the planet.

Planned Major: Mechanical engineering

Jimmy hopes to use his degree in applied mathematics to help provide people with an improved sense of safety. In his community of Fontana, Jimmy was made aware of situations where children were being emotionally, physically or mentally harmed through abuse, bullying, kidnapping or loss of loved ones. Jimmy hopes to use physical tools such as safety whistles or provide resources to ensure the safety and well-being of children, whether they are in school or at home. He also hopes to give back to his community by being a mentor or role model to future generations.

Planned Major: Applied mathematics

As a volunteer for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, a nonprofit organization, Abigail connected with many kids from underserved schools, many of whom felt discouraged from pursuing STEM fields because they didn’t feel welcomed. Using the skills and connections she gains in her studies and career, Abigail plans to provide kids who lack support and have limited access to qualified educators with the resources they need to succeed.

Planned Major: Computer science

Luis aims to fight climate change by modernizing the power grid with efficient solar, wind, nuclear and geothermal technologies. He envisions a future power grid fully powered by green energy or even a grid that creates a surplus of energy for technologies such as carbon capture to reverse the effects of climate change. Luis also aspires to be active in STEM outreach to local communities just like his. He was fortunate enough to participate in MIT’s Mastec online summer program and hopes to provide other students with access to similar resources and opportunities for their future career paths.

Planned Major: Electrical engineering technology

Charlotte hopes to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering and join the Navy. She hopes by pursuing a career in STEM, she can inspire future generations of women to do the same.

Planned Major: Mechanical engineering

Jamilex has often participated in competitions such as creating assistive technology and structural bridge building. These competitions, and the LAunchPad College of ECST program, helped her develop a passion for engineering. She found that many structures can be dated back to the early 1900s and many have not been updated. Jamilex hopes to use her degree in civil engineering to help build affordable and accessible housing for low-income families.

Planned Major: Civil engineering

Mitchell has been a member of Heal Academy, which exposed him to many medical careers and professions. Through his experience with lab simulations, Mitchell has discovered that diagnostics, treatment and therapy are essential to helping people recover and should be accessible to everyone. Some communities, such as veterans, the elderly and the disabled, don’t have access to these essentials and are underserved due expensive costs of healthcare and technology. He hopes to develop a program that creates affordable accessibility devices for those in need.

Planned Major: Physics

Jason intends to pursue a degree in engineering focusing on astronautics at the California Institute of Technology. He hopes his studies will help develop air-flight-capable machines for deep space exploration because there is still so much we don’t understand about the universe. New discoveries could lead to revisiting the laws of thermodynamics or even a wormhole that could create shortcuts to traveling across the galaxy.

Planned Major: Aerospace engineering