Meet the Researcher

My name is Rachel Buhay, and I am a senior at Rock Canyon High School and a student in the AP Capstone Program.

I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, and moved to Colorado when I was two years old. As a part of my family background, I am the daughter of two Filipino immigrants. Also, in terms of athletics, I am an internationally competitive women's saber fencer, representing Team USA in the Bucharest World Cup as a 5x national medalist.

As I have furthered my education and traveled around the world for my sport, I developed a great interest in socioeconomic disparities between different countries. It has always fascinated me why certain geographic areas are correlated with higher rates of diseases or lower life expectancies. Even within the same country, why do these sharp differences occur? This interest has inspired my research project and led me to further explore childhood obesity trends.