Shreya Venkayala

Co-Editor & Senior Writer Riley Harn '24

Shreya Venkayala ‘24 is a Mass Academy senior whose interests span across many disciplines. While Shreya plans on becoming a doctor, she is also passionate about engineering, computer science, and most recently, finance. One might think that Shreya believes that biology trumps all of her other interests, however she loves working in the intersection of those interests. This is one of the things that sets Shreya apart from other Mass Academy seniors.

Shreya has been active in the robotics world since 7th grade. She started out on a middle school FIRST Lego League team and became a mentor once she entered high school. Upon transferring to Mass Academy, Shreya joined the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Team 190. Going from FLL to FRC was a big transition for Shreya, but having a year of experience under her belt she feels that, “It's going a lot better this year now that I know what I’m doing.” Last year Shreya was the Human Player on the team, so she introduced game objects to the field during matches. FRC 190 made it to the World Championship in Houston, Texas, where Shreya was a Human Player at the largest FIRST Robotics Competition in the world.

After coming back to Massachusetts from Texas, Shreya spent her summer working in the Manning Lab at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. According to Shreya, she worked on “errors in mitosis and how that can affect cell proliferation in cancer.” Obviously cells and mitosis are quite different from robots, but Shreya is able to bridge the gap between the two worlds. Shreya “harvested organs from deceased mice to analyze the genetic information of cancers growing in the mice.” She made sure to note that “...it smelled really bad.” However, that didn’t stop her from diving deeper into the possibilities of her future, as she began volunteering at the Milford Regional Medical Center to gain clinical experience.

At Milford Regional Medical Center, Shreya volunteered in the outpatient cancer infusion wing. She delivered lunches, brought blankets, and helped nurses clean up. Shreya appreciated how she “[got] to see all the nurses taking care of the patients and the doctors, anesthesiologists, and surgeons.” This inspired Shreya and gave her a more realistic view into what a career in medicine might look like for her.

Now Shreya is an Engagement Assistant at a local assisted living home. Shreya chuckled when prompted about what her role entails. The residents at the assistive living home play bingo. Shreya revealed, “Bingo is their favorite thing. Every time they play, they put in a quarter and whoever wins, gets the pot— they get real serious about that one.” Shreya works to plan and run activities each Sunday during her shift.

When Shreya isn’t building robots, doing cancer research, volunteering, or working, she is working towards her Bharatanatyam, a culminating Indian Classical Dance performance that she’s been working towards for most of her life. Shreya admitted, “I've watched so many happen and gone to a lot of them since I was a little kid, it will be good to finally do one.” Instead of doing the entire, multi-hour performance by herself, Shreya will be sharing her Bharatanatyam with her sister. Together, the sisters have to “practice every day for a half-hour to an hour and build up the strength and stamina.” The dance has pushed Shreya athletically and artistically.

Despite already having a wide range of interests, Shreya wanted to stretch herself further for her Senior Independent Study Project. She decided upon studying personal finance, with an emphasis on discovering the elusiveness of the stock market. While Shreya has not actually invested money in the stock market, she’s been working with a fake portfolio. She confessed, “It's a lot of fun when the stock market is doing good. Right now I have a fake stock portfolio so I can be pretty risky with my investments, it's going pretty well right now.”

Shreya left the interview with a few words of encouragement for future MAMS students,

“Do what YOU like to do. I think that's what I think MAMS is all about. Don’t worry about winning the science fair, do what you like to do and everything else will come along with it.”

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