In my junior year of high school, I took the Social Justice Advanced Authentic Research (AAR) course, a dual enrollment program through Foothill College that allows students to dive into original research on a topic of their choice. Working with three classmates, we began by exploring the global issue of recycling. We quickly realized, however, that while recycling is critical, there were limited avenues for high school students to make a meaningful impact on large-scale recycling initiatives.

This led us to shift our focus to upcycling and target our efforts on educating middle school students. We saw middle schoolers as the next generation of leaders, and we believed they were at an ideal age to understand sustainability concepts. By fostering awareness and encouraging creativity in sustainability, we hoped to instill values that could spark long-term environmental change.

With support from mentors at YCS and our teacher, we completed our research paper, titled “Instilling Environmental Activism and Waste Management Awareness in Bay Area Middle School Students Through Upcycling Artwork Projects.” Through this project, I developed skills in conducting interviews, communicating effectively with mentors and professionals, and managing my time efficiently.

I first met Professor Cheng Jin in middle school when he was our neighbor and completing his medical degree at Stanford. We became very close—he was practically like an uncle to me. After graduating, he went on to teach at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU).

During middle school, Professor Jin introduced me to an application called QuPath and, knowing my interest in robotics, suggested I explore its AI capabilities for categorizing data based on given samples. Later, after relocating his project to SJTU, he invited me to intern with him during the winter of 2023 and spring of 2024. I had the opportunity to contribute to the final stages of the project and took on the role of main author for the research paper.

While we are still finishing the final research paper, we were accepted into the 8th Digital Pathology & AI Congress: Asia. When the project was already in its closing stages, we came across a few obstacles that prevented us from attending the conference and pushed our date back. I look forward to finishing the project soon with the rest of the team at SJTU.