For the winter Signature Symposium, Maya Ajmera, President and CEO of 京东影业影视传媒 and Executive Publisher of Science News, spoke with (STS 2010), Co-Founder of and Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of . Both companies focus on preventive health and wellness technologies, built to track key health indicators. Maya and John dove deep into the scientific background that it took for these technologies to be accessible to the public.

After competing in the Science Talent Search his senior year with an astrophysics project, John headed to Harvard. There he met Will Ahmed and decided to leave his undergraduate studies to co-found health tech company WHOOP.

鈥淭he idea of capturing biometric data continuously sounded like a really cool project,鈥� John says.

WHOOP is a wearable technology that monitors a user鈥檚 unique physiology, tracking biomarkers such as hormones, heart rate, menstrual cycles and blood pressure. These insights align with WHOOP鈥檚 mission to enhance human performance and lifespan. WHOOP was initially designed for professional athletes in mind, from basketball players and swimmers to golfers and tennis aficionados. By tracking physiological data, WHOOP helps athletes optimize training, improve their sleep patterns, and manage challenges such as jet lag, enabling peak performance.

After 10 years at WHOOP, John ventured into another health-monitoring technology called Throne, which is focused on capturing gut and hydration metrics.

Having experienced ulcerative colitis, John鈥檚 curiosity in this technology was personal.

鈥淚f we could analyze stool and urine every day and get that same longitudinal data, we could really transform our understanding and help manage these diseases better,鈥� John says. and uses a special camera for capturing stool and hydration images. Audio capturing tracks urinary flow rate, which is important for monitoring prostate health.

Using what鈥檚 called a , Throne takes images over time to see what鈥檚 going on with a user鈥檚 gut health. Data and information are sent through the Throne app, and a user learns what is going on with their gut and hydration health from the privacy of their homes.

John says gastroenterologists or GI doctors don鈥檛 have much data when it comes to stool samples. Working with University of Chicago researchers with data sets to learn more about gut health, diet and any other diseases that can be studied using advanced image analysis and spectroscopy of stool.

鈥淭he guiding principle with Throne was that we wanted it to be noninvasive because patients, people and consumers don’t want to touch stool,鈥� John says. 鈥淲ith microbiome at home testing, I think it’s around a 60% completion rate.鈥�

Throne is not out yet, but interested consumers are able to pre-order starting this month. Version one is used for general wellness purposes, including gut health scoring and hydration scoring, John says. It鈥檚 intended for everyone but should not be considered a medical device. The idea is that users can track their data to make dietary adjustments or if there is a concerning trend, discuss it with a medical practitioner.

Looking ahead, Maya asked John what he sees as the next major development in at-home health monitoring.

鈥淚 think the big trend in the next 10 years that excites me is no more surprise diagnoses,鈥� John says. 鈥淲ith a plethora of technologies and processes that allow everybody to be healthier and be more proactive in their health journeys, it boils down to no more surprises, and those answers come from more data.鈥�

You can watch this Signature Alumni Symposium on our聽.聽Looking for ways to support 京东影业影视传媒? We invite you to get involved today!

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鈥淭his project is just the beginning,鈥� Charlotte says.

In 2024, found that 46% of transgender and nonbinary young people have considered attempting suicide in the past year. After losing someone close to her to suicide, Charlotte became determined to understand the biological and psychological roots of depression, especially how these factors unfold during puberty, a critical period in brain development and identity formation.

鈥淚 started to see how identity, brain development and mental health intersect,鈥� Charlotte says. 鈥淚 found very little research that actually explored these links in depth, particularly for trans youth.鈥� Charlotte points out that current and past studies typically categorize transgender teens as statistical outliers, labeling the individuals as 鈥榦ther,鈥� which, she says, 鈥渆rases their experience.鈥�

In her STS project, she set out to change this narrative by examining the brains of both cisgender and transgender teens. Her goal was to help clinicians and families gain a deeper understanding of what these teens are experiencing, looking beyond the emotional level. Charlotte鈥檚 scientific results showed that transgender teens showed higher levels of anxiety and depression compared to their peers, along with differences in the volume in certain brain areas linked to mental health. Notably, she found that transgender males with more volume in the right thalamus had greater depression symptoms.

鈥淏oth groups deserve tailored, informed mental health support and understanding the differences is the key to creating it,鈥� Charlotte says.

This research is only the beginning for Charlotte as she hopes to expand and diversify samples, leading to refined, long-term, gender-affirming and evidence-based mental health interventions.

According to, half of LGBTQ youth surveyed were unable to access the mental health care they wanted. Among the small percentage of transgender and nonbinary youth who do receive gender-affirming medical care, nearly 3 in 5 were worried about losing access.

鈥淚 want this research to inform policy, guide clinicians and empower families to make compassionate decisions grounded in science,鈥� Charlotte says. 鈥淚f we can better understand how puberty and brain development relate to mental health in transgender youth, we can offer more personalized care that doesn鈥檛 just treat symptoms鈥攂ut addresses their roots.鈥�

Charlotte says this research is about visibility and empathy. 鈥淔or me, this project is about amplifying stories through science and making sure data reflects the real, lived experiences of those who are too often overlooked.鈥� She believes that care for trans youth and the greater trans population should not be politicized, emphasizing that they are people who deserve to be understood, supported and studied with the same depth and dignity as any other group.

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Born on March 15, 1930, in Vienna, Austria, Karplus and his family fled to the United States in 1938 to escape Nazi-occupied Austria. Nine years later, in 1947, Karplus competed in the Science Talent Search.

In his autobiographical essay, 鈥淪pinach on the Ceiling: A Theoretical Chemist鈥檚 Return to Biology,鈥� Karplus shared that his interest in science began when his brother Bob was given a chemistry set and, while Karplus had asked for a chemistry set of us own, his parents gave him a microscope instead. 鈥淚 had found an exciting new world and looked through my microscope whenever I was free,鈥� Karplus said.

Karplus received support from his mother, father, elementary school and junior high school, when it came to his interest in science. When he entered Newton High School in 1944, Karplus did not have the same supportive environment. Karplus noted that his teachers didn鈥檛 think he would be able to measure up to his brother, who had done 鈥渆xceedingly well鈥� in high school.

Karplus wrote, 鈥淲hen my brother suggested I compete in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, the chemistry teacher, who was in charge of organizing such applications, told me that it was a waste of time for me to enter and that it was really too bad that Bob had not tried instead. However, I talked to the high school principal, and he gave me permission to go ahead with the application. I managed to obtain all the necessary papers without encouragement from anyone in the school.鈥�

Karplus was named a top 40 Science Talent Search finalist and was invited to participate in the finals week competition in Washington, DC. Karplus鈥檚 research project focused on the lives of alcids, which are seabirds such as puffins. Karplus was chosen as one of two top winners 鈥� at the time, there was one male winner and one female winner. 鈥淲inning the Westinghouse Talent Search,鈥� Karplus wrote, 鈥渕ade up for the discouraging interactions with some of my high school teachers.鈥�

Karplus went on to earn his Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College and then completed his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology under the mentorship of Linus Pauling. In his essay, Karplus noted he chose to attend Caltech at the recommendation of J.R. Oppenheimer, who he met while visiting his brother Bob, who was working with Oppenheimer at the Institute of Advanced Studies.

Throughout his distinguished career, Karplus held positions at University of Illinois, Columbia University, Harvard University, Universit茅 of Paris and Universit茅 de Strasbourg, which is where he did his Nobel Prize-winning work 鈥渇or the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.鈥�

鈥淭he early recognition of his immense talent at the Westinghouse Science Talent Search certainly boosted Dr. Karplus鈥檚 confidence,鈥� commented Maya Ajmera, President and CEO of Science for Science and Executive Publisher, Science News. 鈥淚 had the wonderful opportunity to meet him in 2016, and he shared the extraordinary impact the Science Talent Search (STS) had on the trajectory of his life. Dr. Karplus never forgot his STS experience and remained a steadfast advocate for supporting young scientists, especially those facing skepticism or barriers.鈥�

That experience likely impacted Karplus鈥檚 remarks during the Society鈥檚 STS Alumni Conference in 2016, where he said, 鈥淗aving faith in yourself is very important, faith in spite of discouragement.鈥�

Karplus is survived by his wife, Marci, three children, and one grandchild. His legacy lives on not only in his scientific contributions but also in the countless young scientists he inspired to pursue their passion for discovery.

Celebrating Martin Karplus: Winning the Science Talent Search

Celebrating Martin Karplus: snapshots of his inspiring involvement in 京东影业影视传媒 alumni events.

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Dr. Hoffmann, you have a very powerful story. Would you be willing to tell us a little bit about your childhood?

My life was divided by a marker, which was coming to America. The first 11 years of my life were spent both in surviving and then being a refugee.

The surviving was a geopolitical consequence of having been born in 1937 in southeast Poland, in a Jewish family just before World War II. The place where I was born was Austria-Hungary when my mother was born, then Poland when I was born, then it was conquered by the Nazis, and then became part of the Soviet Union. Today, it is part of independent Ukraine. Two and a half waves of ethnic cleansing along the way.

Over the years, this was not a very happy part of the world. Only about 200 Jews out of 4,000 in this town survived the war. Among them was my mother and I, but not my father and not my grandparents. The dimensions of the loss are typical of what happened to Jews in that part of the world. It took us five more years to come to America, with the same discriminatory quotas and immigration laws at play as those causing a barrier to immigrants today.

We had the hardest time to come to rejoin an aunt in America. We got here, eventually, as immigrants, and I鈥檓 not sure we came entirely legally.鈥� Once we got here, the second chapter of my life opened up. I went to public schools in New York City and studied in a wonderful science-oriented school, Stuyvesant High School, which to this day supplies many of your finalists in the Science Talent Search. Everything opened up in the world.

As a child living in Europe during the Holocaust, you have a pretty extraordinary story. I don鈥檛 know if you鈥檇 be willing to share about that time. I believe you and your mother were hiding for a while.

Yes, it lasted 15 months. We were in an attic and then in a storeroom. Five of us, my mother and I among them. We were hidden by a courageous and good Ukrainian schoolteacher and his wife who had three small children. They did this at great risk to their life. I was a quiet child, but it was not an easy time. There were sometimes German soldiers and Ukrainian policemen in the house. It鈥檚 a great credit to my mother, all the games she invented for me.

Do you remember a game she invented that still sticks out for you?

Yes. This was a schoolhouse with atlases stored in the attic. My mother taught me latitude and longitude, which you usually don鈥檛 teach to 5- or 6-year-olds. To probe what I had learned, she then asked me to describe what latitude and longitude I would need to pass in order to travel from Poland to San Francisco, for example. She would give me hard tasks, asking me to go around the Strait of Magellan instead of through the Suez Canal.

Let鈥檚 talk about being at Stuyvesant. What was that experience like for you? What was it like doing science research as a high school student and participating in the Science Talent Search?

Stuyvesant High School had always encouraged research experiences for its students, and there were absolutely great teachers in every subject. The only subject I didn鈥檛 take advanced placement in was chemistry, which eventually became my profession! I found a professor at NYU who was doing experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory on tracks left in a bubble chamber, which was a new device for measuring the outcome of nuclear reactions.

The project was an interesting experience, but it did not pull me into physics. It was quite wonderful, however, because it led to me being selected for the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, which included a trip to Washington where I had the opportunity to meet President Eisenhower.

Meeting President Eisenhower, five years after coming to America, had special meaning for me because he was the leader of the armies who had liberated Europe. It was from the Talent Search, eventually, that I got a summer job between high school and college at the National Bureau of Standards. That summer job led to a second summer there 鈥� these served as an introduction to real science.

Meanwhile, the world opened up in the arts and the humanities, thanks to a wonderful core curriculum in the liberal arts at Columbia. I鈥檓 a strong believer in the liberal arts education. One way to summarize my college career was that I worked up enough courage in college at Columbia to tell my parents I didn鈥檛 want to become a doctor, but not enough to tell them I wanted to be an art historian.

What is it about chemistry that has inspired you and continues to inspire you?

I didn鈥檛 decide on chemistry right away. In fact, I didn鈥檛 make a commitment to chemistry until three-quarters of the way through my Ph.D. in chemistry. I took a year off after two years in graduate school to go to the Soviet Union. This was 1960, the Khrushchev period. Taking a junior year abroad while in graduate school was not done 鈥� Harvard thought I was crazy. My mother thought I would be drafted into the Soviet army.

Now, you ask why chemistry. Somehow chemistry, in the end, was the right field for me. Chemistry is not based on certain knowledge. Sometimes our students complain that they have to memorize some things and then they鈥檙e also asked to explain some other things, like the mechanism of an organic reaction.

That mixture of part logic and part facts that you are required to know, which you then have to connect with each other, is at the heart of chemistry. One comes to peace with partial knowledge. I love that 鈥� somehow it was in resonance with my psychology.

That kind of partial certainty, of having to deal with fuzzy logic, bothers some people. I tell them, if you want certainty, try mathematics. Studying molecules is different, much like dealing with people.

In addition to being a chemist, you publish essays, poetry and plays. Tell us about that 鈥� the process of being a poet.

Everything began in college for me. The interest in poetry came from a course with Mark Van Doren, a poet who wasn鈥檛 allowed to teach how to write poetry. There were no writing courses in those days. If you wanted to learn how to write, you went to night school at Columbia.

I remember going across the street to Barnard College and seeing a production of Federico Garc铆a Lorca鈥檚 Blood Wedding. Somehow it touched me, wondering how an individual could come to feel that intensely. In time, I tried to write both poetry and plays. Maybe gaining confidence from doing chemistry gave me confidence to try these things.

I鈥檓 very glad I did write in time, for it put me in contact with the world of poets and playwrights. I could show you my logbook for submitting poems. Every poem of mine that has been eventually accepted in a magazine has been rejected 10 to 15 times before. Living in that world gives me a better feeling for what people who want to touch us spiritually have to deal with.

How does your childhood experience of surviving the Holocaust influence your view of humanity and the debates that are going on around social justice in the United States and around the world?

I tend to see good motives in the way people act. Perhaps that is not what people expect of someone who survived the Holocaust. The act of survival is sufficient. It is an affirmation of the human spirit that you can survive under extremely difficult conditions. There were a few people willing to risk their lives to help you, like that Ukrainian family I mentioned. That is a great affirmation of the positive nature of human beings. It takes just a few.

Here we are hiding from a virus. Seventy-six years ago, we were hiding from the Nazis. It鈥檚 hard to find reasons for affirmation of the human spirit. But they were there, and I strongly believe that they are here. We will overcome.

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Before the hasty shutdown of classes and campus life, rising Harvard College sophomore, (BCM 2014; ISEF 2017 and 2018; STS 2019), was absorbed in her biochemistry research at Mass General Hospital (MGH). There, the 19-year old was investigating 鈥渉ow RNA can act as both a genetic material and a mechanism to self-replicate.鈥� Unfortunately, once Harvard gave notice to students that they鈥檇 have to finish the unprecedented semester remotely, Zoe was forced to stop her wet lab research and seek new, meaningful projects to work on from her family鈥檚 home in Georgia.

Despite the social distancing measures and angst from all the upheaval, Zoe has found ways to adapt and shift gears. From home, she is working on a computational project for a Penn State neural engineering lab. 鈥淲e are developing a clinical tool for treating hydrocephalus in children from countries without pervasive access to healthcare.鈥� She鈥檚 also working on a project about the transmission of COVID-19.

In addition, Zoe鈥檚 been working on her nonprofit, the , which was just awarded a $5,000 STEM Action Grant. Through her organization, Zoe empowers inquisitive young minds in urban, underrepresented areas to realize their potential in STEM fields. Zoe reveals her passion for a new pilot program her nonprofit just launched, which the grant will support, called InvenTEEN, originated in response to COVID-19. 鈥淭his platform is to help young students develop their ideas for inventions and file provisional patents on their ideas. Working with some of my college friends, we will be helping with prototypes of the kids’ ideas and filings of provisional patents.鈥� The program will reach underrepresented middle and high school students in Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Hear more from Zoe below.

How has this pandemic impacted your life?

With very little notice, I had to move out of my dorm room just before spring break. I went home and set up a workspace in my parent’s house and spent half a semester learning remotely. Fortunately, my family and I have remained healthy, but I have been really concerned about the serious illness and deaths across the country and world (especially their disparate impact on some groups), and the lack of a unified national plan to fight this terrible virus. The disease has taken a significant human toll. It is up to all of us to find ways to keep moving forward with our lives, our education, and our professions, but we must do so responsibly.

What is it like where you live right now, day to day? How are you keeping busy during the COVID-19 world crisis?

Of course, I miss all of the social interactions that I had at college. Fortunately, I had established a few foundational ideas before I left Boston and have been working on a few projects during the pandemic.

My first project was with a microbiology lab at Emory University to create a multi-compartment COVID-19 transmission model. We wanted to study the effects of various mitigation strategies on the transmission of coronavirus. A recent paper published in Science described how some people, called ‘super emitters,’ spread many more virus droplets than others. We made multi-compartment models based on this and performed simulations, considering different infectious groups with varying severities of symptoms. Frankly, models like these have strong mixing assumptions and should not be used to prescribe public policy, but they are informative at gaining an understanding of the complexity of this disease.

Do you have any tips or suggestions for others who have recently been impacted by the coronavirus?

Try to get heavily involved in some things that you are passionate about. With extra downtime, you can focus on an idea and develop it in any direction that you want. A lot of people are connecting through Zoom, so if you have questions, you can connect with others and have them help flesh out your ideas.

How are you keeping connected with the outside world? Explain.

Zoom plays a major role in staying connected. I attend lab meetings remotely, watch lectures, and facetime with my college friends at night. We celebrate birthdays on Zoom and remotely workout together. I also go on hikes, runs and bike rides to get outside and see others, albeit from a distance.

How do think the textbooks will describe this point in history?

We are living in difficult times, where we have a pandemic, social unrest resulting from racial injustices, a polarized upcoming election and increased unemployment. This unique dynamic will cost us many lives and will change laws on how people are treated. We are seeing new innovations arise, where working from home may transform how business and some science are conducted. History will not be kind, since this is a dark era, but our passion and compassion will be recorded as being what got us through this.

If you are interested in sharing your experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, please email the Society Communications team at communications@societyforscience.org.

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Aakshi Agarwal (BCM 2013, ISEF 2016, STS 2017), a Yale junior, was on her spring break at home when the President of the university notified students they would not be returning to campus for the rest of the semester. She was disappointed by the alarming news, but says she felt grateful for having a safe home and family to return to. Besides rounding out the semester with virtual classes and communicating with friends, Aakshi has also kept busy running a nonprofit she cofounded called, , which aims to effectively connect seniors to their physicians and healthcare providers for telehealth appointments.

Aakshi tells the Society, 鈥淚 spend a lot more time reading the news. Like others, I worry about my family and friends鈥� health.鈥� Everyone can relate to the sentiment, especially as it pertains to protecting our older parents, grandparents and immunocompromised loved ones over the age of 65, who are at higher risk for contracting the virus. While containing the spread of COVID-19 is the most palpable priority, other healthcare needs are still critical and are being met by physicians through telehealth appointments. Aakshi and a few friends were concerned though, that telemedicine would not work for all seniors. For instance, what happens when your grandparent who lives alone, does not have a device to set up a telehealth appointment or doesn鈥檛 know how to access Wi-Fi or email? A recent suggests that in the past two weeks, only 38% of adults over the age 65 have talked by video with loved ones and that only 11% of this group have used video technology to connect to their health care providers. Aakshi鈥檚 organization, is working to close that technology gap through a nationwide volunteer effort. Learn more about Aaskshi and her work below.

What is it like where you live right now, day to day? 

In such a chaotic world, I try to structure my day to keep some order. I always start my day with my homemade cold brew and a workout before getting to my online classes and working on homework and my nonprofit. I鈥檝e also picked up a passion for cooking and I have two adorable dogs I love walking and spending time with. I live in a smaller town (Hamden, Conn.) with many cases of COVID-19, but fortunately my state and local government have been doing an excellent job maintaining social distancing.

Are you working on any projects? If so, what are they?

I have recently cofounded a nonprofit, TeleHealth Access for Seniors. When we realized we would be at home for the rest of the semester, we knew there was some small way we could help. We listened to concerns we heard from friends and family who are doctors. One physician said, 鈥�I don鈥檛 know how I can ask my patients to choose between life-saving care and staying home to be safe.鈥� We realized there was a simple solution鈹�connect older Americans to donated devices we can collect from family, friends, businesses and schools.

Our local project has grown into a national effort. We have over 50 volunteers in 20 states and Washington D.C., collecting and sanitizing devices for clinics to provide to their patients most in-need. Now, we are also working regionally with all the Veteran Affairs Medical Centers in the Northeast to provide their patients with devices.

I usually run a few calls a day or brainstorm more ways to get devices for our patients. Along with devices, we provide patients with guides on how to do everything from setting up the device and using FaceTime to ordering their medication to be delivered home. Additionally, we offer tech support where people struggling with the devices can call a number or email us to set up a time to get help.

How do think the textbooks will describe this point in history?

It definitely depends on how Americans and the governments work together in the coming weeks as more states face the peak of the COVID-19 crisis. However, I imagine textbooks will describe this time as a major reorienting of society. More people are realizing how much we can do from home, using technology. For example, TeleHealth has always been a viable option for people in rural areas but there has been little investment. Many physicians say there will be a long-term shift towards it. Like TeleHealth, I believe other parts of our society will see long-term shifts, perhaps towards increased public health measures. Hopefully there is also more global cooperation moving forward.

If you are interested in sharing your experience during the COVID-19 Pandemic, please email the Society Communications team at communications@societyforscience.org.

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New York City has been the epicenter of tragedies from 9/11 to Hurricane Sandy and now, the novel coronavirus. The streets are barren. Restaurants are closed. All of Broadway and the world of theater came to a halt as restrictions enacted by Governor Andrew Cuomo tried to stop the spread of the virus.

STS 2012 alumna, Sammi Cannold鈥檚 off-Broadway play, , went dark the night after it opened due to coronavirus restrictions. All Broadway and most off-Broadway shows shut down, including hers, which held its final performance March 11, though originally scheduled to run through March 29. Sammi was recently named to the Broadway Women鈥檚 Fund and continues to work from home. The 26-year old grew up in Westchester, and has been living in New York City since finishing graduate school in the spring of 2016. 

How has the pandemic impacted your life?

While the pandemic has certainly impacted my life (I don’t know anyone who can say otherwise), through it all, I’ve had food and shelter and I’ve been healthy, so I count myself among the very fortunate. That said, I’m a freelance theater director and both freelancers and the theater industry have been hit hard in ways that previously would have been unfathomable.

I was directing a show off-Broadway called Endlings that had to close the night after it opened to avoid the unsafe gathering of crowds, and I was supposed to direct an opera to open on April 2nd at Rose Hall at Lincoln Center, which had to be called off (at least for the time-being) for the same reason. The theater industry is one that relies on people coming together in person, so the pandemic is a very existential threat for our livelihood. And of course, freelancers work gig-to-gig. If a gig disappears, so too does your income. But again, I have basic survival needs and for that, I’m grateful. 

You live in New York, where thousands have the virus. Did you think about leaving New York?

I live by myself and have been extremely careful the two times I’ve had to go to the grocery store. So, for all intents and purposes, I don’t feel any less safe than in any other place on the planet right now. Of course, on a spiritual level, it’s deeply upsetting to hear about how our city is hurting. But in a way, I think quarantining in a city where you don’t have a backyard makes you feel like you’re in a bubble no matter where you are. So, while I’ve contemplated what it would look like to leave, it’s not something I want to do.

What is it like there right now, day to day?

I have very little awareness of anything outside of my apartment. From my window and the roof of my building where I go to work out, I can see that the streets are very empty. But everything else I know about what’s happening in our city, I know from the TV or Twitter.

How are you keeping busy during the COVID-19 world crisis?

I’m trying to convince myself that every show that I was working on before the shutdown of Broadway and off-Broadway will come back and thus, as a director, that I need to continue to do lots of preparation for them. So, I’m mostly busying myself with that鈥攊t’s a lot of reading, a lot of research, and then sometimes, I try to get a head start on creating staging for some of the projects. 

Hopefully the opera I mentioned (Carmen) will come to be at another time. And then I have many musicals in various stages of development (a new musical and a revival) that are supposed to have productions in the next year, so while we wait to see when the industry will come back, I’m prepping as if I’ll soon have rehearsal processes for those and hopefully that’ll be true. 

How are you keeping connected with the outside world?

Mostly lots of FaceTime-ing with friends and family. I’m also addicted to Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and watching CNN, seeing how everyone else is doing and being information-hungry. I’m trying to pull back on that though as it doesn’t really feel healthy. 

How do you think the textbooks will describe this point in history?

That’s such an interesting question. In addition to describing the horrible toll that the disease took around the globe, I hope that textbooks explain how this happened in America. In other words, I hope they highlight the degree of unpreparedness and total irresponsibility of our federal government and how certain heroes, such as our governor Andrew Cuomo, saved the day as much as was possible. 

If you are interested in sharing your experience during the COVID-19 Pandemic, please email the Society Communications team at communications@societyforscience.org.

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It鈥檚 not a great year to be a senior in high school or college. Everything鈥檚 cancelled and for Stanford senior, (STS 2016, ISEF 2014-2016), that sadly means no commencement. This news, along with moving spring quarter classes to an online platform was a 鈥渉uge bummer.鈥�

For now, the 22-year old from Bethel, Maine, will continue fulfilling requirements remotely. After graduating, pending a return to normalcy, Demetri plans to ski race professionally for the next two years to participate in the 2021 FIS World Alpine Ski Championships in Cortina, Italy, and in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China.

We had a chance to catch up with Demetri:

How are you keeping busy during the COVID-19 world crisis?

I founded a company to develop diagnostics for kidney disease, but with this pandemic, we鈥檙e repurposing this as a COVID-19 test, specifically for rural areas such as the state of Maine. Though I鈥檓 at home, I鈥檓 technically on spring break for two weeks and working on this full-time. Since our lab is closed, I鈥檓 now working at home and moved all the essential lab equipment (non-hazardous) and built a make-shift temporary lab in my room!

Do you have any tips or suggestions for others who have recently been impacted by the coronavirus?

The two hardest things right now are staying healthy and staying positive. As the CDC has advised, stay healthy by washing your hands a lot, not touching your mouth, eyes or nose before washing your hands. Stay home if you are sick. Stay happy by making sure to continue exercising and pursuing other hobbies. Also find ways to socialize while maintaining physical distance is important鈥攚e all need to make sure that we stay connected to avoid depression and other mental health declines. One of the things I鈥檝e done is play basketball with friends using different balls and on different sides of the court. This way we still get to talk and connect with each other while also following the physical distancing recommendations from the CDC to prevent the spread of the virus.

How are you keeping connected with the outside world?

Best way to do this is through phone calls and outdoor activities. Outdoor activities such as walking and running allow us to hit two sticks with one stone. We get exercise to boost happiness and can also connect with others. I鈥檝e been spending a lot of time with my family and phone calling friends that I鈥檓 not able to see in person.

How do you think the textbooks will describe this point in history?

It will depend on how it plays out over the next few weeks, but my hope is that it is remembered as a very difficult time for several weeks with physical distancing measures and people being impacted economically by not being able to work, but that these measures were able to prevent a massive plague and drastically lower the death toll.

If you are interested in sharing your experience during the COVID-19 Pandemic, please email the Society Communications team at communications@societyforscience.org.

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