SISP Spotlight: Isabella Palit

This year, Mass Academy Senior Isabella Palit presented at the Biomedical Engineering Society Conference in Seattle, WA. She had spent, by her estimation, 400 hours across two years researching fibroids by the time she presented. Palit was one of 70 high schoolers from around the world selected to present her research at the conference, otherwise made up of 4000+ undergraduate, graduate and PhD students, her lab mates among them.

Palit’s project originated in Dr. Kevin Crowthers’ STEM I class. Until December, she was pursuing a computer science project related to traffic safety, but Dr. Crowthers encouraged her to follow her true passion: biomedical engineering. She was motivated to make the switch after watching Dr. Catherine Whittington’s presentation during a STEM speaker event. Dr. Whittington eventually took her on as the first high schooler in her lab.

Dr. Whittington’s lab proved to be a wonderful place to work. Palit heard about the conference because all of her lab mates were applying and encouraged her to follow suit. Joking, she recalls that she “just didn’t want to be left out”. 

Palit and the rest of her lab were notified that they had been accepted and prepared together as the conference approached. Within months, they were flying out to Seattle. 

Palit described the conference as “priceless.” She went on to say that “it’s a whole new environment…,” comparing presenting at a conference to presenting at a science fair. One part of the conference that she valued was that it wasn’t a competition. The lack of competition made it easier to maintain a conversational tone when speaking with other attendees .

Now that she’s back on the East Coast, Isabella Palit treasures her memories of the Biomedical Engineering Society Conference. Her passion for her project allowed her to turn a late start into a successful two-year-long project where she found a supportive group of friends.