Kate was an IMACS student from first through eighth grade. She completed all levels of our Math Enrichment Program, then successfully completed our Computer Enrichment curriculum as well as University Computer Science. She was accepted into the highly competitive FAU High School program, which is associated with Florida Atlantic University. After four years there, she earned her high school degree, staying an additional year afterwards to earn her undergraduate degree at the age of 19.
Including a perfect 800 on the math section, Kate scored a 1570 on her SAT and is a National Merit Scholar. She is also a 2022 recipient of the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship for undergraduate students, marking the first time in FAU history that a student has received this scholarship. In addition, she is the 2022 recipient of the Jeffrey S. Morton Research Fellowship and the 2021 recipient of the Magar Data Science Research Fellowship. Kate was also a student in the FAU Max Planck Honors Program, a two-year program including coursework and independent research in a neuroscience lab culminating with the completion of an undergraduate honors thesis in neuroscience.
Kate was accepted into PhD programs in neuroscience at Princeton, Yale, and the International Max Planck Research School. She will pursue her PhD at Yale, where she has been awarded the Wu Tsai Institute Graduate Research Fellowship. She has additionally been awarded the 2023 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, which will provide her three years of complete financial support in graduate school with an annual stipend of $37,000. She aspires to establish an independent lab at a top-tier research university, where she will investigate diverse brain functions through computational modeling and mentor the next generation of scientists.
IMACS ignited my passion for mathematics and computer science and provided me with a solid foundation in computational skills, enabling me to be successful in my academic and career endeavors. More importantly, I developed the problem solving and critical thinking skills required for a career in research by deliberating complex problems in an intellectually engaging environment.
Congratulations, Kate!