Alicia Zhu '25

I became interested in this field from an early age - mostly from wanting to better understand the characters from books I was reading. While my initial interest tended more towards the area of psychology, after taking a summer Neuroscience course, where I learned about brain cells (neurons), brain regions, and a little bit of the field of computational Neuroscience. This is when I became truly fascinated by the brain itself, the organ behind all human thought, behavior, and learning. After applying for IRP, I found a mentor willing to guide me through a project, whose lab had a dataset including the brain activities of younger and older adults while they were performing a new task learned from instructions. An interesting result I found while analyzing this dataset was how older adults required a lot of brain activity throughout the brain, while younger adults were primarily active in highly specific regions. 

Tell us about yourself

100 words on why you decided to pursue this project, and maybe a little about what you have found out or found interesting.

In addition to science and math, I am interested in classics - primarily Latin. I think it’s really cool to be able to study the language and culture of people who lived thousands of years ago. It’s probably the closest thing we’ll have to time travel (of course, until one of my classmates invents it). I also enjoy playing the violin, swimming, and painting. 

Science research related awards / publications

NYSSEF 2024 - Honorable Mention
WESEF 2024 - 4th Place in Category
Somers Science Fair 2023 - 1st Place in Category