What are some educational, personal and professional highlights and/or accomplishments of yours since graduating from high school?

I can’t believe it’s been more than 10 years now since I graduated from Andover! Since then, I graduated from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where I was able to gain unique work experience at various internships at national and global nonprofits and NGOs before I entered the working world.Since graduating from college, I’ve worked in content and product marketing at tech companies including 2U Inc. and HubSpot, and I currently work at Owl Labs, where we make intelligent 360° video conferencing cameras to support hybrid collaboration (which has become extremely important in the last year).

After living and working in Washington, D.C. and Denver, Colorado after college, I moved back to the Boston area five years ago, and my husband and I got married and moved into our first home together in 2020.
 

What is a favorite IEA/CDB memory?

I have so many wonderful memories from my time as a CDB Scholar, and now, a CDB alum.

During my senior year of high school, the annual CDB seminar was held in Cambridge, MA, and everyone participated in an incredibly challenging and fun scavenger hunt that I still remember when I’m trying to find my way around a new part of the city. At another seminar as an alum, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of IEA at the Barder House in Pasadena, and it was so powerful and humbling to hear from IEA founders, staff, and benefactors and see the impact IEA has had on so many kids and families over the years.

On a more personal level, I attended my first CDB wedding in 2019, and it was so fun to celebrate such an important milestone with friends I’ve had for almost 15 years.

What words of wisdom would you pass on to current IEA students?

The friendships I built with other CDB Scholars and students at Andover are some of my strongest and longest-lasting friendships today, despite being separated by distance and not seeing them in-person very often. By taking the time to invest in relationships with your peers and IEA teachers and staff while you’re a student, you can maintain these connections wherever you go next in the world. 

Shortly after graduating from college, I started a job at the Tax Foundation, a non-profit organization in Washington, DC, with a mission of educating lawmakers and the public about tax policy. Taxes sound boring to many people, but tax policy is actually really interesting: The tax code affects nearly everybody and everything, and tax policy is an important tool for building a strong economy and a fair society. I was lucky enough to be working in DC when the 2017 tax bill was being passed. It was a hectic but exciting time; we were publishing new reports every day to keep up with every development and having frequent meetings on Capitol Hill.

After the 2017 tax bill was passed, it seemed like things were quieting down on the tax policy front in Washington, so I decided to apply to law school. I was lucky enough to be admitted to NYU Law, where I’ve enjoyed studying for the last three years. Once I graduate, I plan to start work as a tax attorney at a DC law firm.

My biggest news since high school, though, is that I’m engaged to be married in May!

What is a favorite IEA/CDB memory?

I remember fondly my first Bradley Seminar, which took place in Dallas. It was my first time meeting the other Bradley Scholars, and it was a really fun time. It was also my first time in the state of Texas!

What words of wisdom would you pass on to current IEA students?

Don’t be too busy. Find time to relax, to hang out with friends, and to read for fun. Some people feel pressure to do a million extracurricular activities, but you’ll have a better time if you pick just a few activities that you really enjoy and find meaningful.

If you’ve ever wondered about this form of communication, you’ll find Achyuta’s videos fascinating! 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc0_ipaSIF0&feature=youtu.be” title=”Cryptography I – The Tools of Antiquity”]

It seems that everyone today talks about creative problem-solving. Curriculum guides list problem-solving skills as key objectives at all levels, and professional organizations recommend that creative problem solving becomes the focus of school mathematics. Many people believe that the ability to solve problems develops automatically from mastery of computational skills. This is not necessarily true; problem-solving is itself a skill. A problem is more challenging than a typical exercise because the route to the solution is often not known beforehand, and requires some level of creativity.

Creative Problem Solving I – Unusual Patterns

In this video, 2023 CDB Scholar Arul Kolla kicks off a series of videos centered around creative problem solving by talking about “unusual patterns” — when we see patterns that go beyond traditional skip-counting, how do we approach them? In this video, we see a variety of techniques that both help solve these problems and more general ideas for the topic of creative problem-solving.

If I had asked seventh grade Esther An where she was going to be in three years, she probably wouldn’t have eagerly responded with, “Wallingford, Connecticut.” Actually, even the suggestion
of anywhere outside the city of Los Angeles, California, where I was born and raised, would have been met with incredulousness.

But, somehow, I find myself writing in a dorm room almost 3,000 miles away from where I imagined I’d be, in the midst of fall term at Choate Rosemary Hall. When I look back on the events that led me here, they originate, inevitably, from the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship. The short version: CDB completely opened up my world.

More specifically, though, I remember walking into my CDB interview as if it was yesterday, as well as my distinct feeling that I could talk with Bonnie and Brianna forever. Leaving the gorgeous green offices in Pasadena that day, I was overwhelmed by their warmth, love and kindness.

I was over the moon when I joined this community because, as I began to meet fellow Scholars and parents, I realized that this feeling of connection, of finding my people, only got stronger. Our network is incredibly diverse, but each and every person is connected in the way that they’re some of the most generous, inspirational and passionate people I’ve had the privilege to meet. For me, that’s been the most unique aspect of this whole experience. CDB has allowed me not only to broaden my horizons and take on challenges I couldn’t have previously imagined, but also to find my favorite people.

I honestly can’t believe there was a time when I didn’t know them, especially my wonderful friends at Choate. Everything I’ve shared with my peers has shaped me: working through computer science with Lucas, contemplating the meaning of life and how one can understand the inner workings of an Arduino with Aarthi, making it through a flight to Kentucky with Anna, discussing the importance of faith during a cross country run with Emma, getting a “ping” from Sam, being awed by one of Kathy’s brilliant solutions to a math problem and listening to Bekah’s invaluable advice when I’m unsure of what I’m doing — I could go on and on about how special these people are to me and how much I love them.

It’s really no surprise that traveling across the country hasn’t been the only drastic change I’ve welcomed these past few years. CDB has empowered me with the will and grit to try and discover myself. With the support of the amazing people at IEA, I’ve thrown myself headfirst into new expeditions. From starting and sticking with Choate to taking black-and-white film photography to learning dance and to joining a hack-a-thon, CDB’s incredible community has taught me that there’s nothing I can’t learn or grow from. I’ve also realized that I have a lot to be grateful for. I’m so lucky to be a member of this fabulous group.

If there’s one thing CDB has taught me, it’s that the unknown isn’t so scary when our community — our family — is with you on your journey, every step of the way. My dearest hope is to be the kind of person who can give back to the world all of the blessings I’ve been gifted.

The application for the 2019 Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship is now open! Visit the CDB page for more information and to apply.

By Vinjay Vale, 2013 CDB Scholar

Today’s education system has created a rift between STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and the humanities. It may seem counterintuitive, but studying the humanities actually makes you a better scientist. Scholars of literature, philosophy, art, and history develop an understanding and appreciation for what it means to be human. I believe it is vital for scientists to study these fields, especially in a modern world full of rapid technological advances.

Through my own research, I experienced firsthand how the humanities can help scientific research.

My Regeneron STS project was on Artificial Intelligence, specifically teaching computer programs to learn and interpret geometric structures in visual scenes. The current state-of-the-art has poor spatial and compositional understanding; for example, it classifies a leopard-print couch as a leopard despite the furniture’s lack of a head and tail. Understanding how objects are composed of their parts is critical for complex vision tasks like visual reasoning. My approach to the problem deviated from the modern paradigm of neural networks. Believe it or not, I was inspired by a 1987 psychology paper by American vision scientist Irving Biederman on the Recognition By Components theory for human vision. The theory is based on breaking down complex objects into simple spatial elements called geons.

As I worked on my project, I spent multiple weeks outside the lab where I exclusively read books and papers, on subjects ranging from art to artificial intelligence, some suggested by my mentor Kevin Ellis (who I met through the MIT PRIMES high-school research program). In philosophy class, meanwhile, I learned about Plato’s Theory of Forms, and realized that I was trying to recreate a similar understanding of the visual world in computers.

Making connections between these diverse fields helped me develop the necessary insights to make headway on my interdisciplinary problem: teaching a computer to learn and interpret visual scenes.

My work falls into an emerging category of AI research called explainable AI — that is, building artificial intelligence systems that can articulate their thought processes to humans. This is an important area of AI safety, which merges ethics and philosophy with the more technical side of computer science.

In general, the gray area where ethics and tech meet is ripe for exploration. The underlying digital buzz permeating all aspects of our lives makes human moral judgement all the more essential. Think about social media, big pharma, self-driving cars — scientists who understand ethics have the capacity to make a positive impact on the world. Studies have shown that engaging in arts, history, and literature bolsters morality, compassion, and empathy. As a pianist, composer, and avid reader, I’d certainly like to think I’ve benefited in this way.

My study of the humanities also has made me a better collaborator, by helping to sharpen my communication skills and compassion. I know that in the future I want to be part of interdisciplinary teams of scientists that tackle significant real-world problems. There’s no doubt that the interpersonal and collaborative skills that I learn from studying and discussing history, philosophy, and literature will be essential in the future.

Whether we’re talking about clinical trials (where every day human behavior can make or break a drug) or computer science (as in my experience drawn from art and psychology), understanding human nature is fundamental to doing science. When most people think about the future of humanity, they envision a universe where science has propelled our species towards a better tomorrow. But science alone is not enough to solve the world’s problems: that science needs to be done by people who understand what it means to be human.

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